Description:
Gabriel Du Pre, the fiddle-playing Native American detective, is back in a seventh Montana mystery. This time Du Pre is enlisted by his lover Madeline to look into the disappearance of the teenage son of her old childhood friend Jeanne. Like Jeanne's other children, and many more youngsters on the Fort Belknap Reservation, Danny suffers from mental and physical problems that seem to Du Pre to be connected with the activities of Persephone, a gold mining operation adjacent to reservation land. When Danny turns up dead, Du Pre enlists the aid of his wealthy and well-connected friend Bart Fascelli, who in turn brings a retired mining executive into the search for proof of Persephone's illegal activities. Du Pre is a complex and interesting protagonist with a strong if troubled relationship with his Indian heritage and an almost mystical connection to the land. There's hardly any mystery involved; the mining company is identified as the villain early on, and Du Pre's efforts to pin responsibility on Persephone take second place to the detailed exposition of Native American customs, rituals, and dialect; the expertly evoked ambiance of the harsh Montana environment; and the well-drawn minor characters, particularly Bart, Madeline, and Billy Gourard, a young Native American boy whose final futile effort to make the mining company accept responsibility for its crime provides the denouement. A welcome addition to the Western mystery genre, The Stick Game will be eagerly snapped up by fans of Tony Hillerman and Nevada Barr. --Jane Adams
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