Search Results: Peter Bowen from I Cannot Live Without Books

Coyote Wind (Montana Mystery Series, Book #1) by Peter Bowen
Officially, Gabriel Du Pre is the cattle inspector for Toussaint, Montana, responsible for making sure no one tries to sell cattle branded by another ranch. Unofficially, he is responsible for much more than cows' backsides. The barren country around Toussaint is too vast for the town's small police force, and so, when needed, this hard-nosed hybrid Indian and Frenchman lends a hand. When the sheriff offers gas money to investigate newly discovered plane wreckage in the desert, Du Pre quickly finds himself embroiled in a mystery stretching back a generation.
For three decades the crashed plane has sat in the sun as the bodies inside rotted away to their bones. Two skeletons are whole, but nothing remains of another except its hand and skull -- and the bullet that ended the man's life. The crime was hidden long ago, but in the Montana badlands, nothing stays buried forever.

Wolf, No Wolf (Montana Mystery Series, Book #3) by Peter Bowen
Two men have been cutting fences at the ranches of Toussaint, Montana, losing thousands of dollars worth of cattle to use as target practice for their .22 rifles. Are they thieves? Pranksters? Local cattle inspector and sometime deputy Gabriel Du Pre guess they're environmentalists, agitating for reintroducing native wolves to Montana's high plains. Du Pre knows the perpetrators are trying to send a message to the ranchers of eastern Montana -- he also has a hunch they're already dead.
When the activists are indeed found shot to death, Du Pre must figure out who used them for target practice. The FBI descends, but their agents are as clueless in this territory as the hapless victims were. Clearly, one of Toussaint's citizens committed this crime, killing to protect the traditional way of ranching life, a loyalty Du Pre shares. But if anyone's going to arrest his people, it will be the cattle inspector himself.