[The Non-Euclidean Blog] Review: Coyote Wind

[NEB]

Coyote Wind by Peter Bowen
St Martins Mass Market Paper, 1996

Gabriel Du Pré is a simple Métis, descended from First Nation and French Canadian stock. He earns his keep as a Montana cow brand inspector, but sometimes serves as an on-call law enforcer. So when a small, decades-old plane wreck is discovered in the mountains, the sheriff asks Du Pré to check it out. And everything checks out as you'd expect, except for that extra skull with a bullet rattling inside it.

Clearly, Peter Bowen knows Montana. Du Pré represents a lot of Montanans: hard-drinking when he feels the need, hard-cussing when it seems appropriate, irritated by regulation, suspicious of government and outsiders, weathered and fatalistic to a point, and utterly devoted to his family. Bowen has certainly romanticized these traits in Du Pré; very few (if any) can balance these attributes without being an utter jerk.

If you think I'm devoting a lot of space to analyzing Du Pré, rather than talking about the mystery, that's only because the book does the same. There is a mystery, but it takes a back seat to getting inside Du Pré's good-hearted but deeply cynical mind. A substantial portion of the book subsists of Du Pré's jaded inner dialogue about the people and events he encounters, and of wandering reminisces about the journeys, tragedies, and nobility of the Métis. Not surprising, since Bowen created Du Pré partially as a vehicle to tell the story of his people.

You still want to know about the mystery? Fine. All I'll say is it's not very complicated, you'll probably unravel it without too much trouble, and that an old murder manages to leave scars in the present. There's really not much else to say, because the book's strength lies in the people, not the plot. Whole chapters consist of nothing more mysterious than Du Pré (a widower) trying to be a good father to his two high-spirited daughters, help a rich alcoholic beat the booze, or notify crooked ranchers that he's caught 'em trying to sneak stolen cattle past him.

And you know what? I didn't mind. Although I love a good, convoluted mystery, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Gabriel Du Pré. I look forward to the next time he's called away from inspecting the backsides of cows to reluctantly and unwillingly investigate shady goings-on.

5 out of 5 stars

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Posted By NEB to The Non-Euclidean Blog at 7/30/2009 06:32:00 AM