The Stick Game

About this book

With their exceptional characterizations evocative setting and smartly plotted mysteries Peter Bowens Montana novels have always fascinated readers and critics alike. In The Stick Game Bowens lyrical spare writing carries us once again to a part of the country few of us know much about. The latest installment in this unique series finds amateur sleuth and cattle rancher Gabriel Du Pre uncovering the dirty secrets of an industrial gold mine and searching for a troubled teenage boy. At a trading fair in rural Montana Du Pre and his longtime love Madelain run into Jeanne now worries about the disappearance of her sixteen-year-old son Danny. Meanwhile Du Pre befriends a musician from Fort Belknap Reservation who introduces him to disturbing parallels between the huge incidence of birth defects in the Indian population there and the activities of the persephone gold mine located near the reservation. With some reluctance Du Pre agrees to look into both problems. But then Dannys body is found in a well and Du Pre discovers a link between the boys life and what goes on at Fort Belknap. Working with a doctor whos long been concerned about Persephones practices Du Pre dangerously confronts the indifference and recklessness of the industrial mine. Perfectly capturing the cadences of Metis life Peter Bowen beautifully depicts the people and landscape of remote Montana.