ASH CHILD

“Cowboys,” a Montana woman says early in Gabriel Du Pré’s ninth adventure (Cruzatte and Maria, 2001, etc.), “have the smarts of anvils.” But she says it more or less lovingly, and the fact is—as anyone in tiny Toussaint, way up in the high country, will tell you—that whenever a tough knot needs unraveling, you send for Du Pré, that quintessential cowboy and master unraveler. And if he’s not busy expertly fiddling or philosophizing or imbibing his favorite tipple, “the whisky ditch,” he’ll tackle the toughest puzzle. Like the mystery surrounding poor old Maddy Collins. Who’d want to take a hatchet to a woman near 90, leave her bloody and lifeless on the floor of her remote cabin, and not bother to look for the $800 she had stashed in a bureau drawer? The case involves an awful lot of suspects—many of whose motives, unfortunately, are more obscure than good mystery-mongering requires—and an awful lot of burning trees. The dry season has descended on the area just west of Toussaint in a way that portends massive forest fires, some already burning ferociously. Were they started intentionally? Is Maddy’s murder somehow connected to them? Who is that enigmatic good guy so indistinguishable from a bad guy? Count on anvil-headed Du Pré to figure it all out.

Quirky dialogue, flamboyant people, the usual Du Pré fun. Bowen fans are doubtless inured by now to plots that go up in smoke.