Nails

"Fiddler, father, widower, cowboy and lover, Du Pré has the soul of a poet, the eyes of a wise man, and the heart of a comic" (The New York Times Book Review).

Gabriel Du Pré's precocious granddaughter, Pallas, has returned from her Washington, DC, boarding school, and trouble seems to have come along for the ride. Du Pré's girlfriend's son, Chappie, is also back from serving in Iraq, minus one leg and one eye. As the family tries to help him adjust to civilian life, the town is invaded by a fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist sect, whose preacher is hell-bent on imposing his own beliefs on the easygoing people of Toussaint, where even the most pious prefer to keep God to themselves.

Du Pré is content to ignore the evangelists, until a mountain hike turns up the body of a little girl. Although he has no hard evidence, instinct tells him that the fundamentalists may be to blame. Du Pré hunts the countryside for the young girl's killer, wishing as always that the outside world would leave his beloved Montana alone.

In this "admirable, highly original" series, "Du Pré, a Métis Indian, ignores the speed limit, smokes hand-rolled cigarettes and drinks whisky like it was water. He also plays fiddle like an angel, takes care of his friends and defends the weak with equal passion" (Publishers Weekly).