"Cruzatte and Maria" is basically a replay of Bowen's earlier "Wolf, No Wolf," where the noble ranchers are pitted against the eco-ninnies, and in this book, the Yuppies who putter up and down the far reaches of the Missouri in their canoes and stinkboats. The local residents defend their rural stretch of the Missouri against all intruders, and shoot a couple of guys who were actually writing a pro-rancher, anti-ecoNazi book. This is where Harvey Weasel Fat Wallace, the Blackfeet FBI guy calls on Du Pré to find the murderer.

Another FBI guy, Ripper sums up the plot:

"These people out here have had it, basically, with the twentieth century, and who can blame them? But potting passing canoe paddlers is, and I must make this perfectly clear, like the late Tricky Dick, not going to be the protest of choice. It's illegal. It's also wrong."

Everyone leans on Du Pré in this book, including his daughter Maria. She persuades him to help a group of filmmakers (her boyfriend is the assistant director) who are shooting a documentary about the Lewis and Clark expedition. As it happens, Maria and her father are Métis descendants of the fiddler, Cruzatte who was a member of that famous 1805 expedition.

Even Du Pré's long-term mistress Madeleine gets into the act, and tricks her man into trying on glasses:

"'Du Pré,' said Madelaine, 'I think you maybe got eyes like a hawk, see things far away, up close you got eyes like a pocket gopher.'

"Du Pré grunted.

"'Put a bead on that ...needle,' said Madelaine.

"Du Pré picked up a bead, poked the needle at it, and missed.

"...'Okay, Du Pré,' said Madelaine. 'You try these on, yes.'"

Madelaine whips out a bag of dime-store reading glasses and Du Pré is made to realize that he hasn't seen her face or her beadwork in years. The dialogue in this book is up to Bowen's best standards, and I love these scenes between long-time friends. The author telegraphs just enough information to give us readers a warm, fuzzy sense of involvement.

The scenes I don't like usually take place in a bar, where the ranchers gather to literally and metaphorically bash guitar-playing, expensively-attired Yuppies, eco-Nazis, and film-makers. Too much drinking. Too much smoking. Too much high cholesterol. Too much violence. Bad for sensitive Yuppie stomachs like mine. Don't read this book if you have the flu.

Otherwise, read it. "Cruzatte and Maria" is the latest in Bowen's excellent, tough-love series of not-so-hard-to-figure-out mysteries.

Peter Bowen has been writing his tales of Gabriel Du Pre, a Metis Indian, master fiddler, detective and righter-of-wrongs extraordinaire for some time now. Du Pre, his mate, Madelaine and his many dear friends in Toussaint, Montana have acquired a loyal following during that time. Bowen's new book, "Cruzatte and Maria" is his finest yet, and will greatly please all readers, new and old.

When Du Pre's old friend in the FBI, Harvey Wallace, asks him to look into a series of disappearances in the White Cliffs area of the Missouri River Gabriel is troubled and refuses to become involved. Residents of that area, mostly ranchers, have been under continuous attack by environmentalists and encroachment by yuppie wilderness seekers. Du Pre understands the ranchers' struggle and senses an underlying, irresolvable tragedy.

Unfortunately, Du Pre's is unable to maintain his distance. His daughter Maria has returned to Toussaint with her boyfriend to help with the making of a television special on the Lewis and Clark voyage. Maria is descended on both sides from the four Metis Indians that accompanied the adventurers and Gabriel is dragged into the production as a consultant and advisor. Naturally, the movie is to be filmed on the banks of the Missouri, in the same location as the disappearances. Gabriel smells a set up, but concedes gracefully (actually he curses a lot) and undertakes both missions. As the story progresses Du Pre's worst fears and greatest hopes are realized. Metis life and history, politics, Hollywood and the rancher's struggle for recognition and independence mix together in a heady, sometimes disquieting, stew.

Bowen is an absolute wizard with characters. Not only Du Pre, but many other characters come brilliantly to life, even in the short space of this novel. Bart, Du Pre's billionaire friend and Benetsee, the mad/wise holy man who drives Du Pre crazy with riddles stand out. A new and special character is Pallas, one of Du Pre's eleven grandchildren. She will totally charm the reader with her seven-going-on-thirty attitude and her sharp, accurate tongue. The ranchers, members of the movie company and countless bit players are all unforgettably painted.

Perhaps the best thing about Bowen's writing is his insight into the Metis Indians. They are a tribe mostly forgotten to American and Canadian history, who played a great part in the fur trade in Canada and Montana. As a multi-tribal mixture of indigenous, French and Scottish blood they have had great difficulty gaining recognition as an independent culture. The are strong folk, with a rich musical tradition and an indomitable spirit. Bowen's Metis are people of great character, wry, fun loving, and deeply respectful of their people, their friends and the land they live on. Bowen captures their language and dry sarcastic wit perfectly. The reader will leave "Cruzatte and Maria" delighted to have spent time with these remarkable people.

Du Pre's daughter Maria comes home from school with her boyfriend Ben who is the assistant director on the movie being made on Lewis & Clark. Maria asks Du Pre to be the historical consultant on the set and Du Pre reluctantly agrees. Harvey Weasel Fat asks Du Pre to check into the disappearances of several people at the White Cliffs area of the Missouri River. These two tasks come together and make for murder.

The local residents don't like newcomers and somebody is making sure that strangers don't stay. Two environmental journalists are found in the river and it doesn't look like it was an accident. Du Pre must find out who is doing the killing before anybody else gets hurt.

Peter Bowen does an excellent job bringing out the local customs and mannerisms of the Metis people. Du Pre is an offbeat but thoroughly engaging sleuth. Makes you maybe want visit for a while.

I think it was a mistake to bundle these two books together, even though they are the first two in a series of Montana mysteries featuring Gabriel Du Pré---and even though I saved money by not having to buy them separately. "Coyote Wind" is a definite 'five stars.' "Specimen Song" drops down to 'three stars.'

"Coyote Wind" is a darn near perfect specimen of a mixed-genre mystery cum western. Gabriel Du Pré is laconic, honorable, and wise to the ways of the Big Sky Country---a throwback to the noble cowboy-hero of Zane Grey's novels. He is a vulnerable hero, a Métis descendant of the French Voyageurs and Plains Indians. He has problems with his teenage daughter, who has shaved off part of her hair and dyed the rest of it a weird color. His mistress won't marry him because in the eyes of the Church, she is still married to the sleaze who deserted her many years past. He is plagued throughout the book by an alcoholic Métis prophet.

Du Pré's voice is unique, and perfect for this story. His dialogue is short, punchy, flicked with mordant barbs---an arrow in your heart when you are least expecting it. Two chapters into the book, found myself talking, thinking like Du Pré. Sounds like this:

"Du Pré knelt, looked, crossed himself. Some days he didn't believe in God, but he did believe in crossing himself.

"Maybe this let you sleep now," said Du Pré. He picked up the white skull, the color of the giant puffball mushrooms that came up in pastures in the wet years. The mushrooms were bigger, and startling in the green.

"'Now I got someone's head in my hands, I thinking on frying mushrooms,' Du Pré said aloud. 'Dumb bastard'."

The mystery of who killed whom in "Coyote Wind" is fairly easy to unravel once you get to know and care about the characters. It almost had to occur, considering the people involved. It becomes more important to see if Du Pré can help a friend stop drinking, rather than to figure out who murdered his friend's brother. As Du Pré keeps telling everyone who will listen: "I ain't a cop...I am a [brand inspector]."

Nevertheless, it is Du Pré who is tapped to solve a thirty-year-old murder. He goes about it in a style that is perfectly tuned to his character. Not a single false note from Du Pré or his fiddle.

"Coyote Wind" is a very satisfying read.

"Specimen Song" features the same cast of characters as its predecessor. However, their personalities are exaggerated to the point of disbelief. The Métis prophet performs magic tricks. Du Pré goes jaunting back and forth to Washington D.C. in his friend's private jet, after turning the brand inspection business over to his son-in-law. He also canoes through the Canadian taiga, following the river route of his Voyageur ancestors. All of this traveling is in search of a killer, but somehow Du Pré seems more blustery than heroic when he is removed from the land where he can read the turn of a leaf.

Or the body language of an enemy.

I very much hope that Du Pré returns to Big Sky Country in volume III.

If you enjoy character development, these are the stories for you. Gabriel Du Pre' and his cohorts are delightful---people you'd like to meet and spend time with---and you learn to know them as you get deeper into these novels. These are mystery stories written with a wonderful ear for dialogue and a wry take on life. Buy this book and enjoy these novels; you won't be disappointed.

"Coyote Wind" is a darn near perfect specimen of a mixed-genre mystery cum western. Gabriel Du Pré is laconic, honorable, and wise to the ways of the Big Sky Country---a throwback to the noble cowboy-hero of Zane Grey's novels. He is a vulnerable hero, a Métis descendant of the French Voyageurs and Plains Indians. He has problems with his teenage daughter, who has shaved off part of her hair and dyed the rest of it a weird color. His mistress won't marry him because in the eyes of the Church, she is still married to the sleaze who deserted her many years past. He is plagued throughout the book by an alcoholic Métis prophet.

Du Pré's voice is unique, and perfect for this story. His dialogue is short, punchy, flicked with mordant barbs---an arrow in your eye when you are least expecting it. Two chapters into the book, found myself talking, thinking like Du Pré.

The mystery of who killed whom in "Coyote Wind" is fairly easy to unravel once you get to know and care about the characters. It almost had to occur, considering the people involved. It becomes more important to see if Du Pré can help a friend stop drinking, rather than to figure out who murdered his friend's brother. As Du Pré keeps telling everyone who will listen: "I ain't a cop...I am a [brand inspector]."

Nevertheless, it is Du Pré who is tapped to solve a thirty-year-old murder. He goes about it in a style that is perfectly tuned to his character. Not a single false note from Du Pré or his fiddle.

"Coyote Wind" is a very satisfying read.

I'm hooked, Peter Bowen has made the characters real for me, he's given them life. He shares his knowledge of what it is like to live in rural Montana, the lifestyle, the love of the land, the selfish way the locals take care of their own and the country.

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.

Think Tony Hillerman liberally peppered with Cajun Hot sauce. After reading all the Montana mysteries now, I feel at home in Toussaint, Montana with Gabriel Du Pre, his rough-around-the-edges but sweetheart Madelaine; sobered up rich-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold Bart; crusty old Booger Tom; Benny and Susan Klein; Benetsee that shaman he remind me of Yoda and the rest of the rural Montana populace. If you're not careful you'll catch yourself thinking and talking with that DuPre Coyote French Metis clip. These are unique personalities with real voices that Bowen has pieced together. I feel as if I know them....like I want to hang with them at the bar and be there when Gabriel gets his fiddle out and makes that Metis music that draws the crowd and brings back the voyageurs; be around when the next bad thing happens and draws Gabriel and the others into figuring out whodunit. This is original work that's refreshing, honest, beautifully crafted and fun to read. I hope that Bowen he's home right now writing more mysteries from Montana.

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

In a helpful, lucent introductory chapter, Mackey (Univ. of South Carolina) makes intelligible--even to the nonphilosopher--the distinction between classical mechanics and postmodernism and the role of chaos theory in mediating between the two. According to Mackey, philosophers from Aristotle to Einstein have viewed nature as a machine--deterministic, evolving through a chain of cause and effect, potentially knowable, and governed by the laws of logic. By contrast, postmodernism views life, and language, as and ultimately unreal. To find a middle ground, Mackey turns to chaos theory, which "accepts the indeterminateness and interrelationships emphasized in postmodernism yet affirms the existence of an aboriginal reality." In a dense and insightful analysis of Ulysses, Mackey applies this theory to the life of Leopold Bloom, finding him at the end of the book a man who has been left stronger and more hopeful by the trivial and accidental events of the day, but no less uncertain about his future. Equipped with endnotes, this book will serve upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

“Coyote Wind” is a darn near perfect specimen of a mixed-genre mystery ... western. Gabriel Du Pré is laconic, honorable, and wise to the ways of the Big Sky Country---a throwback to the noble cowboy-hero of Zane Grey’s novels. He is a vulnerable hero, a Métis descendant of the French Voyageurs and Plains Indians. He has problems with his teenage daughter, who has shaved off part of her hair and dyed the rest of it a weird color. His mistress won’t marry him because in the eyes of the Church, she is still married to the sleaze who deserted her many years past. He is plagued throughout the book by an alcoholic Métis prophet.

Du Pré’s voice is unique, and perfect for this story. His dialogue is short, punchy, flicked with mordant barbs---an arrow in your heart when you are least expecting it. Two chapters into the book, found myself talking, thinking like Du Pré. Sounds like this:

“Du Pré knelt, looked, crossed himself. Some days he didn’t believe in God, but he did believe in crossing himself.

“Maybe this let you sleep now,” said Du Pré. He picked up the white skull, the color of the giant puffball mushrooms that came up in pastures in the wet years. The mushrooms were bigger, and startling in the green.

“’Now I got someone’s head in my hands, I thinking on frying mushrooms,’ Du Pré said aloud. ‘Dumb bastard’.”

The mystery of who killed whom in “Coyote Wind” is fairly easy to unravel once you get to know and care about the characters. It almost had to occur, considering the people involved. It becomes more important to see if Du Pré can help a friend stop drinking, rather than to figure out who murdered his friend’s brother. As Du Pré keeps telling everyone who will listen: “I ain’t a cop…I am a [brand inspector].”

Nevertheless, it is Du Pré who is tapped to solve a thirty-year-old murder. He goes about it in a style that is perfectly tuned to his character. Not a single false note from Du Pré or his fiddle.

“Coyote Wind” is a very satisfying read.

The ongoing saga of Gabriel DuPre and his extended family/network of friends is superbly continued in this 10th installment from Peter Bowen. Each book has dealt with a different issue of current western life. Badlands centers around extremist fringe groups in the west, in this instance a religious group called Children of Yahweh (with a strong nod to Waco).

All the familiar faces are present in this book - FBI agents Harvey Weasel Fat, Pidgeon, and Ripper - shaman Bennetsee and his apprentice Pelon - and of course DuPre and Madeleine and DuPre's precocious granddaughter Pallas who is intent on marrying Ripper when she gets to be 16 in 4 or 5 years. Bowen is able to weave his characters into his plot with grace, hilarity and verve. However, if you are a new reader, it would be better to start with an earlier book. The patterns of action between the characters have been set in the earlier books and are often just tangentially referred to in this book, making it difficult for the new reader to fully grasp why events occur the way they do. For example, DuPre and Bennetsee have a most unusual relationship and their interaction, crucial to the plot, is only hazily revealed. I am still not sure if Bennetsee ever really physically appears in Badlands.

Another problem with this book for the first-time Bowen reader is that the mystery is not a mystery and there is no real resolution. The reader is presented with a cult taking over a large tract of land edging on the badlands of Montana. This cult is eventually found to have possibly stolen a large quantity of weapons from a military depot but this is only part of the threat to DuPre and his friends. It also comes out, in the last 20 pages of the book, that the cult is experimenting with viral diseases. At the end of the book the reader is unsatisfactorily left with an unidentified cult head, key leaders of the group who are either killed or missing, and the cult still occupying the land. While this may reflect a current sense of national disquiet (and seems pervasive in today's news stories), it is difficult on the mystery reader who likes things tied up and labelled at the end of a story. This lack of real ending is the reason I give the book a less than stellar five-stars.

But - long-time readers of Bowen will have few problems with the ending and no difficulties with the character interrelationships. The richness of characters is the driving force behind this series and this book does not disappoint. DuPre and Madeleine have once again graced our lives with their annual return - we can only hope for more.

In Toussaint, Montana, the townsfolk host a going away party for a family who owned a ranch for over a century, but forced to sell to the well funded The Host of Yahwah. A white priest leads the cult and decrees his followers will be picked up by alien spaceships just before the world is destroyed.

Gabriel DuPre learns through his FBI contacts that seven men who left the cult were all killed on the same day at the same time in various places around the country by female members. Gabriel tries to help a woman trying to escape but when she sees that members of the cult are about to capture her, she kills herself in front of her children. When Gabriel sneaks into the compound and sets fire to an ammunitions dump, the resulting explosions are enough to get the FBI involved. The FBI surrounds the compound but nobody wants another Waco so the Federal agents are prepared to wait them out until Gabriel comes up with an idea to break the back of the resistance.

The tenth installment in this series is refreshingly original due in large part to the protagonist who though a grandfather fourteen times over, lives life to the fullest. He is not afraid to take chances and puts his life on the line to try and get some information on the cult that can be used by the FBI. In BADLANDS the federal agents are the good guys who act with restraint while the cult members pursue their sinister agenda. Peter Bowen does for Montana what Tory Hillerman does for New Mexico.

Harriet Klausner

"Wolf, No Wolf" will never make the Sierra Club's list of recommended reading. It is third in a series of mysteries starring Gabriel Du Pré, the Métis descendant of French Voyageurs and Plains Indians, and it is rabidly anti-environmentalist and pro-rancher.

Rabid or not, such is the power of Bowen's writing and the nobility of his characters that even clean, green bunny-huggers (like me) might end up voting for the ranchers and against the re-introduction of wolves into Big Sky Country at story's end.

All of the regulars at Touissant Bar are part of the action in "Wolf, No Wolf." Du Pré, master fiddler and part-time brand inspector is cast in the role of peacemaker. With help from his friends, the Shaman Benetsee, Bart the rich-guy-turned-sheriff, Du Pré's long-time mistress, Madelaine, and Booger Tom, the ancient, homicidal cowhand, he braves avalanches, gunfire, and false medicine men in order to prevent open warfare between the ranchers and the Earth First! crowd.

There are good ranchers, and there are really evil ranchers who sell dead horses for dogmeat.

There are good FBI agents (not very many) who are either Montanans and/or part Amerindian. The vast majority of agents are feeble, clueless, and from out-of-state. Some of them are so dim-witted as to try and arrest the Shaman Benetsee, who plays a wonderful joke on them with his coyotes. (A previous reviewer compared Benetsee to Yoda. Boys and girls, that reviewer was dead-on. Lucasfilm© should take Peter Bowen to court for kidnapping.)

All of the environmentalists, New Age mystics, and Yuppies in "Wolf, No Wolf" are easily identified by their expensive, crassly-colored, mail-order garments of many pockets. They are even dumber than the FBI agents, and are easily led astray, even unto death, by the book's true evil empire (sorry, Lucasfilm©).

And die they do, by avalanche and grizzly, by gunshot and knife, and by freezing to death in Alberta Clippers. The ranchers rescue as many as they can, but winter in Montana is truly hell-frozen-over. Some of Bowen's leanest, most vivid prose is devoted to descriptions of out-landers and cattle that venture out into the jaws of a Blue Northerly.

Better to stay in the Touissant Bar and drink fizzy, pink, screw-top wine, and listen to Du Pré fiddle the sad, old Voyageur songs.

If you like Dick Francis, you'll love Peter Bowen. Gabriel Du Pre, a Montana Metis, is more woodswise than Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon, tougher than sun-shrunk rawhide, and thoroughly believable. Peter Bowen has captured the fiery independence of the REAL rural west

Madalaine, his lover, persuades Gabriel Du Pre, Montana fiddler and occasional detective, to discover how the Persephone Mine is destroying the health of those who live on the nearby reservation. It is obvious that something is seriously amiss, but nobody has been able to pin it down. Du Pre finds poison springs, but no evidence as to how they arose. His wealthy friend, Bart, provides expert help in the person of two retired mining engineers to help Du Pre bring the mine to justice. Bowen fails badly with this book, perhaps because he cares so much about the problems he exposes. The book contains plenty of information but very little plot development. Tired and boring repartee is supposed to divert attention from the holes in the action. Bowen has written six previous books, all excellent. Buy one, or even better, all of them, and skip The Stick Game.

Great book, a little out of the ordinary for Bowen as there is very little mystery, but the discussion of the ways the West is being used up for the profits of BIG BUSINESS while the residents, both Native American and the latecomers who love it is worth the price.. The fate of Du Pre's old police cruiser is a highlight not to be missed.

Aficionados of Peter Bowen's Gabriel Du Pré mysteries already know that life is grim in the Big Sky Country. It doesn't matter whether you're a ranch hand, a fiddler, a rich alcoholic, or just passing through. In fact the LL Bean-clad, Volvo-driving Yuppie tourists are the ones who usually take it on the chin, although Bowen only inflicts them with a verbal barrage in "The Stick Game." He is concentrating on more serious targets: alcoholism; and the mysterious illnesses, mutations, and deaths of children and animals on the Fort Belknap Reservation.

Bowen's detective-hero, Gabriel Du Pré is a laconic fiddler who lets his music and his deeds speak for him. He and his long-time mistress, Madelaine are Métis descendants of the French Voyageurs and Plains Indians.

Du Pré's rich friend Bart is also unusually laconic in this seventh mystery in the series. Most of his lines consist of one-word expletives. However, Bart's language can be excused since he is very stressed out by his friends' rude jokes about his new lady friend, not to mention the realization that he owns millions of dollars of stock in a local gold mining company that is injecting poisons into the water table.

In what might be the most cheerful scene in "The Stick Game," Du Pré blows out the transmission on his old police cruiser, loses his brakes and goes shooting through a series of downhill, hairpin turns at eighty miles an hour. He and Madelaine narrowly miss an oncoming eighteen-wheeler, go twanging through a barbwire fence, and finally slow to a stop in a rancher's stock pond:

"The water was only two feet deep.

"Du Pré mopped at his face with a greasy towel that lived on the floor of the cruiser. He could see.

"'Hey, Du Pré,' Madelaine laughed, 'That was some fun yes! I am paying two dollars that ride at a carnival! Hah! We have good luck!'

"'S__t,' said Du Pré."

These are some tough people in Bowen's book. I think you'll end up feeling good about the life-affirming way that his characters deal with their problems. Rich Uncle Bart helps smooth the way for some, but this is a barbwire book---you'll find it poking you in some unexpected places.