In the latest installment of peter bowen's acclaimed mystery series, gabriel du pr investigates a century-old crime lieutenant john patchen has come to montana to persuade chappie plaquemines, his former gunnery sergeant in iraq and the son of gabriel du pr 's girlfriend, to accept the navy cross. first, however, du pr and patchen must find the wounded marine, who was last seen drinking heavily in the toussaint saloon. they locate him soon enough, disheveled and stinking of stale booze, but a sobering visit to a medicine man's sweat lodge reveals a much greater mystery: the unsolved case of a band of m tis who were last seen fleeing from general black jack pershing's troops in 1910 before disappearing. strange voices within the sweat lodge speak of a place called bitter creek, where the m tis encountered their fate. to find it, du pr tracks down the only living survivor of the massacre, a feisty old woman whose memories may not be as trustworthy as they seem. but when amalie leads du pr to pardoe, an out-of-the-way crossroads north of helena, he senses that they are about to uncover long-buried secrets. discouraged by the us military, their lives threatened by locals whose ancestors may have played a role in the murders, chappie, patchen, and du pr bravely pursue the truth so that the victims of a terrible injustice might finally rest in peace. "peter bowen's bitter creek is likely the top of the du pr series, of which i've read all fourteen. it is a lively and absolutely fascinating look into western history." -jim harrison, author of legends of the fall "peter bowen writes mysteries that are truly mysterious-informed by western legend, steeped in indian superstition. . . . riding with du pr is some kind of enchantment." -the new york times book review "du pr joins a select group including sherlock holmes, nero wolfe, and dave robicheaux, characters that readers feel they've known all their lives. . . . thought-provoking and always entertaining, this latest chapter in bowen's ongoing du pr saga shows the author at the top of his form." -william hjortsberg, author of falling angel and ma ana "bowen plays his language the way du pr plays violin: plaintive, humorous, wild, the sounds of the sentences as meaningful as the story." -the washington post book world "bitter creek is peter bowen's unforgettable series hero gabriel du pr at his fiddling, ditch-swilling, cruiser-tromping best." -david mccumber, author of the cowboy way and playing off the rail peter bowen (b. 1945) is an author best known for mystery novels set in the modern american west. when he was ten, bowen's family moved to bozeman, montana, where a paper route introduced him to the grizzled old cowboys who frequented a bar called the oaks. listening to their stories, some of which stretched back to the 1870s, bowen found inspiration for his later fiction. following time at the university of michigan and the university of montana, bowen published his first novel, yellowstone kelly, in 1987. after two more novels featuring the real-life western hero, bowen published coyote wind (1994), which introduced gabriel du pr , a mixed-race lawman living in fictional toussaint, montana. bowen has written fourteen novels in the series, in which du pr gets tangled up in everything from cold-blooded murder to the hunt for rare fossils. bowen continues to live and write in livingston, montana.