Specimen Song

A "plain-spoken, deep-thinking Montana cattle inspector" takes on a serial killer in DC (The New York Times Book Review).

With misgivings, cattle inspector and sometime deputy Gabriel Du Pré has left his hometown of Toussaint, Montana, for big-city Washington, DC, where the Métis Indian fiddler has agreed to play his people's music for a Smithsonian festival. But like the frightened and confused horse galloping wildly down the National Mall, Du Pré is very much out of his element. He does know how to catch and calm a runaway horse, however.

If only catching a killer could be so simple. When a Cree woman from Canada who came to sing in the festival is found murdered, her death is just the first in a series of fatal attacks on Native Americans. Each killing is foretold by a shaman, and each time a primitive weapon is used. As the body count rises, Du Pré fears he might be the serial killer's ultimate target.

New York Times–bestselling author Ridley Pearson says about Peter Bowen's Montana mysteries: "The best of Tony Hillerman meets Zane Grey . . . Du Pré is a character of legendary proportions." And Booklist calls Gabriel Du Pré "one of the most unusual characters working the fictional homicide beat."