Stewball (Gabriel Du Pre) - Hardcover

Bowen, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031227730X ISBN 13: 9780312277307

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2005

Synopsis

Gabriel Du Pré's Aunt Pauline has a list of husbands and ex-husbands and future husbands even she herself has trouble remembering. So Du Pré isn't exactly surprised when she shows up in Toussaint complaining that her current man, a lovable roughneck named Badger, has run off. His longer-than-usual absence has Pauline worried, and Du Pré promises to look into exactly what sort of trouble he has gotten himself into.

No one quite imagines, least of all Pauline, that the first thing Du Pré will find in his investigation is Badger's body, lying in a remote part of the Montana wilderness with a bullet-hole in the base of his skull. Du Pré has a hunch his old friend and foil Harvey Wallace will be interested in the case-after all, Gabriel Du Pré's Montana is teeming with just the sorts of people that tend to interest Wallace's employers, the FBI, and the odds that Badger got mixed up with them seem inordinately high.

The trail leads straight into the teeming underworld of illegal, remote brush races involving a ragtag bunch of traveling horsemen, with many thousands of dollars wagered upon each race. Forced to go undercover to determine how Badger met his end, Du Pré finds his own horse and jockey to bet on in another complicated, fascinating outing for Montana's favorite Métis son.
Peter Bowen's tough, rough-edged, likable hero rides again in Stewball, an intricate installment in a classic series by one of the genre's quirkiest and most beloved practitioners.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Bowen, a Montanan, writes of the West. Cowboy, hunting and fishing guide, folksinger, poet, essayist, and novelist, he's written the picaresque Yellowstone Kelly historical novels, humor columns and essays on blood sport as Coyote Jack, and the Gabriel Du Pré mysteries, in part because "the Métis are a great people, a wonderful people, and not many Americans know anything about them."

Reviews

In Bowen's winning 12th Gabriel Du Pré novel, the Montana lawman agrees to help his Aunt Pauline find her current husband, Badger, who's gone missing. Du Pré contacts his FBI friend, Harvey Wallace, who shows him a photo of Badger, shot dead at the base of the skull execution-style. And that's just the beginning of an investigation that involves a racehorse named Stewball, treasonous government agents and two, or possibly three, charred corpses in a plane. None of this seriously discomfits Du Pré, who remains as relaxed as ever, even in the face of illegal horse racing and a scalping. As in previous Du Pré books, the fast-paced narrative offers ample doses of local color, evenly spaced bursts of violence and an unforced, laid-back style. While this contemporary western mystery breaks no new ground, it rewards with its pleasing lack of pretension. (Apr. 18)
Copyright Š Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Badger wasn't a bad guy; he just fell in with the wrong folks and got busted running illegal quantities of prescription drugs down from Canada. The FBI agent who busted him hoped he could lead the feds to the bigger fish in the prescription-drug racket, but Badger ends up with a bullet in his brain. The FBI agent is Harvey Wallace, longtime confederate of Gabe Du Pre, the retired Montana brand inspector and sometime lawman. Turns out Badger was married to Gabe's cousin, so Harvey asks Gabe if he'd like to help catch the bastards who did it, who may be a gang of bent ranchers using the drugs to dope racehorses. Gabe, in turn, enlists the aid of Booger Tom, an ancient cowboy, and Lourdes, his horse-whisperer granddaughter. And, of course, to get into the races, you have to have a horse. That would be Stewball. The twelfth entry in the Du Pre series is as consistently entertaining as its predecessors. Gabe, ever skeptical of the modern world and its institutions, places his faith in people, the land, a hand-rolled smoke, and the occasional ditch-water highball. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright Š American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 031227730X
• ISBN 13: 9780312277307
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224