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Title: Specimen Song

Subtitle: A Gabriel Du Pre Mystery, Book 2

Author: Peter Bowen

Narrator: Jim Meskimen

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-15-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 58 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

A serial killer follows Du Pré from Washington, DC, back to Montana

A lost and frightened horse plods down the National Mall, startling the crowd. When Gabriel Du Pré spots the confused animal, the connection is immediate, for neither of these creatures belongs in the sweltering heat of a DC summer. Du Pré, a Métis Indian from the wilds of Montana, calms the horse and leads it to the nearest policeman. Du Pré is in Washington to play his peoples music for a Smithsonian festival, but after leading the horse to safety, he encounters a murder instead.

The dead woman is Cree Indian, come down from Canada to sing in the festival. Du Pré tries to put her death out of his mind and returns to Montana, but more killings follow: each time with a primitive weapon, each time foretold by a local shaman. As the body count rises and the killer closes on Du Pré, the lawman vows to never again make the mistake of leaving Montana.

Members Reviews:

The difference between reading & performing

The Gabriel Du Pre' mystery series by Peter Bowen are my favorite books. They are written with a lot of dialect, and have a lot of mystique in them. Now we finally have some more of them in audio, but we no longer have the gifted Christopher Lane reading them. Lane voiced Gabriel Du Pre' with Coyote French gutturals and western twang, creating a truly life-like character in all dimensions.

Mr. Meskimen reads the book adequately, but he does not have the acting ability or the vocal range to bring the characters alive.

Du Pre' is a Montana brand inspector that drives too fast, drinks too much, dances when he can, and fiddles to the happy crowds in Toussaint's lone bar, as well as at other gatherings. He lives in sin with the lovely Madeline, and they both have kids and grandkids. In the case of Du Pre', it's a passle of grandkids, as one of his two daughters decided to make up for her mother's early death by giving her papa a big family to love. The other daughter is a genius, off doing big things.

I tell you these things because you might not learn all of them in this book, and it is important that you know that Du Pre' takes no crap from anybody. Him, he's got good friends, and sometimes he figures things out, just because something doesn't look right. Meanwhile he is proud grandpapa and premier folk fiddler.

Him, he agrees to go to that Washington, D. C., and play his fiddle at a Smithsonian folk music festival, The crowds bother him some, but he enjoys the other musicians, and then the runaway horse comes, and he goes to get it. Takes the horse back, him, and finds a dead person.

I cannot reproduce Peter Bowen's well-written dialect, but I have talked to people, talk like this, and I know this kind of people. Good people. Good author.

You need to start with the first book in the series so that you know more about Du Pre' and the people who live in Montana ranch country. There are several other books in audio form as well, but you'll be hooked by the skills of Christopher Lane in "Coyote Wind," book one of the series. Then listen to this one. Big difference, this. Listen to the others that are already available, and wait anxiously for the rest of them, because even an average reader is better than no reader at all.