Thunder Horse

I am now hooked on Du Pre and his friends in Toussaint, Montana. The descriptions of Metis history are fascinating and the abilities of the old shaman, Benetsee, are wonderful to consider. Ancient remains of early arrivals with Caucasian characteristics are thought-provoking and the complete skeleton of a T-Rex dinosaur brings out the greed in more than one group. Through it all, Du Pre fiddles, drinks his whiskey, makes love to Madelaine and solves everyone's problems.

Once upon a time I read Bowen's Gabriel Du Pré stories because they were good mystery stories. Then I read them because I loved the characters. Then I read them because, by de-romanticizing the Northwest they had created a whole different vision of life in a land well beyond my ken. Now I read them because of all of those things - there is always some gemlike bit in the story that catches my imagination. Thunder Horse is like a boxful of those moments. Du Pré is a Metís Indian, member of a subculture that has existed before there were clearcut boundaries and fences. It is a composite culture, often ignored, but of great richness and importance in American history. It was the Metis, after all, who led Lewis and Clark west, who carried the furs to market, and learned to play a music which can compel the most somnolent to toe tapping. Many peoples have crisscrossed the north of Montana, not just the Metís, and Thunder Horse is about the most ancient of these, the Horned Star People, who came across the land bridges 15,000 years ago. A gravesite is discovered in Du Pré 's country on land destined to become a dude trout fishing in the middle of nowhere. When bones from a Tyrannosaurus Rex are also found Du Pré quickly realizes that the trout are just a ruse and the new owners are really looking for a dinosaur skeleton worth millions. And the Horned Star dead are just a nuisance to the hunters. Even in Toussaint, Montana, big money means big trouble. In no time flat a more modern victim is found. The real mystery isn't the murder, though, but the intricate relationship between the pieces of a millennia old puzzle. Dinosaur bones, 15,000 year old Caucasian skeletons, and local Indian practices from as late as the past century all blend together into a story that is half anthropology and half a deeper mysticism that us modern guys from Detroit can really only guess at. Bowen manages to bring is together into a story that is as funny as it is respectful of the deepest of values. I find myself inhaling the story at one gulp and then desperately wanting more.

The `Thunder Horse' of the title is Tyrannosaurus Rex, although it could also refer to the earthquake that starts out this fifth Gabriel Du Pré mystery with a bang. All of the regulars are at the Touissant Bar listening to Du Pré make sad Voyageur music on his fiddle, when the Big One rumbles in. It doesn't seem fair that Montana should have avalanches, grizzlies, Alberta Clippers, and earthquakes, but I guess it keeps the outlanders from swarming all over the scenery.Unlike the wholesale carnage in "Wolf, No Wolf," only one outlander on a snowmobile is murdered in "Thunder Horse." This murder, plus an assault on his friend Bart force Du Pré back into his role as a reluctant detective. He gets the usual amount of playful misdirection from the Shaman Benetsee, practical advice from his mistress, Madelaine, and homicidal commentary from the ancient Booger Tom.The earthquake shifted mountains, dried up springs, uncovered bones---17,000 year-old human skeletons of a Caucasian people that Benetsee calls the Horned Star Folk.How did the shaman know that a horned star amulet would be found among the bones? How old is Benetsee, anyway? Is he the enigmatic Walker in the Snow?T Rex bones mix in with the skeletons of the mysterious Horned Star Folk, along with a yellow, radioactive uranium clay that was once used for face paint. Du Pré alternates between hard drinking, hallucinatory sweat baths, and journeys through the eerie and death-dealing badlands of Montana before he can begin to work out how these three things fit together---and how the completed pattern points to a killer. "Thunder Horse" is one of the best of the Du Pré mysteries. Peter Bowen's Montana badlands are haunted by the people who once lived there---Norwegian homesteaders; Crow; Cheyenne; the Métis descendents of Voyageurs; the Horned Star folk who paddled down long-vanished rivers from the Arctic. Their bones and legends are the heart of this mystery.

An earthquake strikes an area near Bozeman, Montana where the Japanese had begun a development project to turn a local spring into a trout farm. However, the plan is placed on hold because the quake reveals that the land is an ancient Native American burial ground. Soon, a more modern corpse is found in the area. A snowmobiler, carrying a dinosaur tooth, has been murdered. An archeologist claims the tooth is valuable because it is that of a T-Rex, of which there are very few complete skeletons. Part-time deputy Gabriel Du Pre begins to investigate the killing as well as attempting to short circuit the growing hostility between the Japanese and the Native Americans. As he gets closer to the truth about the murder, Gabriel places his own life in jeopardy. In his fifth Du Pre mystery, Peter Bowen continues to scribe one of the freshest and unique regional who-done-it series on the market today. The characters are all genuine and fun as they charmingly represent the local lifestyle. The story line is fast-paced and even the use of local dialogues fails to slow the action down for a minute. THUNDER HORSE, its predecessors, and Mr. Bowen's other series (Yellowstone Kelly) are all entertaining reads. Harriet Klausner