Notches: A Gabriel Du Pre Mystery

by Peter Bowen

Book Overview

"[An] enjoyable series of interest to western crime readers, especially those favoring Montana authors C. J. Box, Craig Johnson, and Keith McCafferty as well as fans of the Hillermans" (Booklist). The... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312151810
• ISBN13: 9780312151812
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 196 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Do Yourself a Favor and Become Friends with Du Pre (and Bowen)

Brilliant weaving of many elements: Du Pre's sense of honor, his Metis family and friends descendents of French voyageurs and their Indian wives, Bowen's caring about a country and a people and telling it all radiantly. As usual, as well as all the familiar characters, those in for only a short time are well-drawn. A textbook on how to write. Read in chronological order, as characters develop as the books procede.

"Your babies are safe."

In Notches, Peter Bowen does something that he will never repeat. He mixes his normal light touches and Metís culture with a chilling story of a chase to stop not one, but two serial killers from continuing to reap pain and horror on paths that crisscross the U.S., but touch base near Toussaint, Montana far to often. The result of this conflict between people who love to live, and the litanty of those who must die is unnerving. Gabriel Duprés is a Metís - his blood is a mix of Indian tribes, French and British blood, a reflection of the history of the Northern U.S. and Canada. He is a cattle inspector turned homicide investigator in a little town where the sheriff throws up at the sight of blood. Death happens all the time in Toussaint, but never like this, and Gabriel must step in to make sure the daughters of Toussaint can live without fear. It isn't a role Gabriel is comfortable with, he is no avenging angel, but everyone, from his woman, Madelaine, to the FBI are looking to him for a resolution. Despite repeated trips to half-hidden burials, Bowen keeps Duprés' head up and his wry wit firing on all cylinders. Toussaint is a close community of the fiercely independent. This is something that Gabriel will find repeatedly is the real source of his power, not his consultations with Benetsee the shaman, who has a knack for disappearing at crucial moments. But humor or no, Notches is a brooding story about human evil. Duprés does what he has to to stop the killings, but this is an uncomfortable resolution. Bowen puts of the ending for as long as possible and then rushes through it at such a rate that the reader may miss the turning point until it is too late. "You not like this at all," Madelaine tells Duprés. "If you did, I would not love you." Of all Bowen's stories, Notches is perhaps the strongest.

On the track of two killers

"Notches" is the fourth mystery in Bowen's series that features Gabriel Du Pré, Métis descendant of the French Voyageurs and Plains Indians.There are reasons police might not want Du Pré at the scene of a crime. He spits a lot as he circles the corpse, rolls his own cigarettes and mashes them out beneath his boot heel. A forensic specialist would find traces of him all over the scene. In "Notches," he even hides evidence because he wants to track a killer without interference from the FBI.On the plus side, nothing at the scene escapes him. If he is called in to examine one body, he may find two others near by that no one else has noticed--which is exactly what occurs in "Notches." Someone has been killing girls and dumping them "like old guts in the brush for the coyotes to eat," according to Du Pré's long-time mistress, Madelaine.There are two serial killers on the loose in "Notches" which makes for a confusing plot. There are also two FBI agents who add to the scenery, but don't do much more than engage in slanging matches with Du Pré, who after all is said and done isn't even a policeman, merely a part-time brand inspector. Madelaine finally presses Du Pré into tracking the killers down when her own daughter runs away from home.Du Pré is laconic to the point of partial sentences, but the interrupted staccato of his speech is a perfect counterpoint to the harsh Montana landscape and to the sometimes abbreviated lives of its inhabitants. Over 150 corpses form an even grimmer than usual backdrop to Du Pré's musings on the long history of his people and the land. This book is not so much a murder mystery as it is a complex landscape of hell from the pen of a Montanan Hieronymus Bosch.

GABRIEL DU PRE, THE METIS AVENGING ANGEL

Gabriel DuPre is my hero. He says and does what he wants and doesn't care what anybody thinks, he is his own man. When the mutilated and tortured bodies of several young girls and women start turning up around Toussaint, Montana, the FBI calls on Gabriel to help them solve the cases. Madelaine, Gabriel's spitfire of a girlfriend, adds fuel to the fire by telling Gabriel to find the killer and protect her girls. Even if you don't agree with everything that Gabriel believes in or does, he will make you think. You will love this book.

A lawman must think like a serial killer to catch him

A young, female corpse without her jaw and teeth is found along the side of the Hi-Line near Toussaint, Montana. The identity of the victim cannot be determined due to the mutilation of the body. Soon more corpses show up in the same mutilated shape. FBI agent Harvey Wallace obtains Du Pre's help to catch a couple of killers, who have murdered girls throughout Canada and the U.S. for too many years. Making the deaths and subsequent investigation even more personal, Du Pre's lover Madelaine finds her own daughter missing. Du Pre promises to do everything he can to find the Hi-Line killer(s). To do so, he must learn to think like a serial killer, but pray what he learns does not become an intricate part of his persona. His most fervent hope is that he stops the killers before there are additional victims. NOTCHES is an interesting mystery for fans who enjoy superb characterization. Du Pre is a great protagonist and his support cast are top rate characters, and no one brings Montana more alive then Peter Bowen. However, the simple identification of the two killers add nothing to the who-done-it; thereby leaving fans of that sub-genre looking elsewhere for their reading material. Harriet Klausner -----