Badlands
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A mysterious cult takes over a ranch in this western thriller starring a crime solver who "resonates with originality and energy" (Chicago Tribune).
The Eides have owned cattle in Montana since 1882, but a few days after they pull up stakes and sell their property, their homestead goes up in flames. When Métis Indian investigator Gabriel Du Pré arrives on the scene, nothing is left but the ashes. A serene young man appears, insisting the fires were set purposely and firmly asking Du Pré to leave. He is a representative from the Host of Yahweh, the millennial cult that has purchased the sprawling ranch on the edge of the Badlands, and arson is just the beginning of their suspicious behavior.
At first, the people of Toussaint try to ignore the secretive cult. But when Du Pré gets a tip from an FBI contact that seven Host of Yahweh defectors were recently shot to death, he takes another look at the glassy-eyed conclave. Behind their peaceful smiles, great evil lurks.
Badlands is the 10th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gabriel Du Pr , Bowen's hard-drinking, fast-driving, fiddle-playing western hero, investigates the activities of a sinister religious cult that purchases a huge cattle ranch in the 10th entry in this gripping and humorous series (after 2002's Ash Child). Du Pr 's suspicions are aroused when the Host of Yahweh immediately destroys the ranch buildings, sells the livestock and erects a makeshift metal chapel for secret rites. Soon, reports of mass murders and suicides bring in cautious FBI agents ever mindful of the Waco debacle. Du Pr 's blunt speech and sometimes opaque thought patterns can be hard to follow, but his pursuits of wrongdoers over cliffs, canyons and arid river beds are truly riveting. His encounters with Benetsee, a native seer and medicine man, are often comical, though the old man provides good counsel when the self-appointed sleuth, with a posse of deputies and federal agents, surround the compound for the final siege. Other denizens of remote Toussaint, Mont., including Du Pr 's girlfriend, tough-minded bartender Madelaine, and his wayward granddaughter, Pallas, provide welcome diversions from the ominous goings-on behind the Host's electric fence. A buffalo stampede, tales of Indian lore and even the modern menace of biological weaponry lead to a just-in-the-nick-of-time finale. FYI:Bowen is also the author ofKelly and the Three-Toed Horse (Forecasts, Feb. 26, 2001) and other titles in his Yellowstone Kelly historical series.
