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Peter Bowen

The half Indian cattle inspector and “character of legendary proportions” is back—in this beloved contemporary western mystery series (Ridley Pearson).
 
 Officially, Gabriel Du Pré is the cattle inspector for Toussaint, Montana, responsible for making sure no one tries to sell cattle branded by another ranch. Unofficially, he is responsible for much more than cows’ backsides. The barren country around Toussaint is too vast for the town’s small police force, and so, when needed, this hard-nosed Métis Indian lends a hand. In Gabriel Du Pré “Bowen has taken the antihero of Hemingway and Hammett and brought him up to date . . . a fresh, memorable character” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
Badlands: When a mysterious cult takes over a cattle ranch, the people of Toussaint try to ignore their suspicious behavior. But when Du Pré gets a tip from an FBI contact that seven Host of Yahweh defectors were recently shot to death, he takes another look at the glassy-eyed conclave. Behind their peaceful smiles, evil lurks.
 
 “Gripping and humorous . . . truly riveting.” —Publishers Weekly
 
The Tumbler: A few years back, Du Pré led a documentary film crew down the Missouri River to commemorate the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Rumor now has it that the Montana fiddler is in possession of the long-lost writings of Meriwether Lewis, and an unscrupulous billionaire has kidnapped two of Du Pré’s friends to get his hands on the journals.
 
 “[Du Pré’s] moral center is unshakable. Another wonderful adventure in a great series.” —Booklist
 
Stewball: When his aunt Pauline’s latest husband turns up shot, execution-style, Du Pré goes undercover to infiltrate a cabal of wealthy gamblers who pass their time racing horses in the barren Montana brush, among other nefarious activities.
 
 “[The] fast-paced narrative offers ample doses of local color, evenly spaced bursts of violence and an unforced laid-back style.” —Publishers Weekly

Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller

The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré

The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré Volume Four: Badlands, The Tumbler, and Stewball

The contemporary western mystery series continues in these novels featuring a half Indian cattle inspector and “character of legendary proportions” (Ridley Pearson).
 
 Officially, Gabriel Du Pré is the cattle inspector for Toussaint, Montana, responsible for making sure no one tries to sell cattle branded by another ranch. Unofficially, he is responsible for much more than cows’ backsides. The barren country around Toussaint is too vast for the town’s small police force, and so, when needed, this hard-nosed Métis Indian lends a hand. In Gabriel Du Pré, “Bowen has taken the antihero of Hemingway and Hammett and brought him up to date . . . a fresh, memorable character” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
Notches: Working alongside a Blackfoot FBI agent and his feisty female partner, Du Pré tracks a serial killer hunting young women in the Montana wilderness.
 
 “A haunting tale, punched out in arresting rhythms of speech powerful as a tribal drumbeat.” —Entertainment Weekly
 
Thunder Horse: After an earthquake exposes an ancient burial site, Native American tribes fight over the remains and a fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex tooth is found in the hands of a murdered anthropologist. Time for Du Pré to start digging.
 
 “Strange, seductive . . . The wonder of these voices is that they are . . . blunt, crude, soaked in whiskey and raspy from laughter, but still capable of leaving echoes.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
 
Long Son: After greedy, vicious Larry Messmer inherits his parents’ ranch, the FBI asks Du Pré to keep an eye on the pathological prodigal son. When violence inevitably erupts, Du Pré finds himself caught in the crosshairs.
 
 “Bowen’s writing is lean and full of mordant observations. His hardy characters . . . come to life, and his wry humor . . . provides relief from the haunting, wind-bitten cattle-ranch landscape.” —Publishers Weekly

The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré Volume Two: Notches, Thunder Horse, and Long Son

The contemporary western mystery series follows the further adventures of a half Indian cattle inspector and “character of legendary proportions” (Ridley Pearson).
 
 Officially, Gabriel Du Pré is the cattle inspector for Toussaint, Montana, responsible for making sure no one tries to sell cattle branded by another ranch. Unofficially, he is responsible for much more than cows’ backsides. The barren country around Toussaint is too vast for the town’s small police force, and so, when needed, this hard-nosed Métis Indian lends a hand. In Gabriel Du Pré, “Bowen has taken the antihero of Hemingway and Hammett and brought him up to date . . . a fresh, memorable character” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
The Stick Game: After a Native American boy turns up dead, Du Pré takes on a mining company that’s poisoning reservation children. Is there something more sinister than greed and indifference at work?
 
 “Wonderful . . . wise.” —The Washington Post Book World
 
Cruzatte and Maria: While reluctantly serving as a consultant for a documentary about Lewis and Clark’s expedition up the Missouri River, Du Pré stumbles upon a national treasure: Meriwether Lewis’s lost journals. Then members of the film crew start dying . . .
 
 “A solid entry in a great series.” —Booklist
 
Ash Child: In the midst of a drought in Toussaint, Montana, brushfires, meth dealers, and murder challenge the Métis Indian tracker and cattle investigator.
 
 “Compelling . . . plenty of action . . . a pleasure to read.” —Publishers Weekly

The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré Volume Three: The Stick Game, Cruzatte and Maria, and Ash Child

The first three novels in a contemporary western mystery series featuring a half-Indian cattle inspector and “character of legendary proportions” (Ridley Pearson).
 
 Officially, Gabriel Du Pré is the cattle inspector for Toussaint, Montana, responsible for making sure no one tries to sell cattle branded by another ranch. Unofficially, he is responsible for much more than cows’ backsides. The barren country around Toussaint is too vast for the town’s small police force, and so, when needed, this hard-nosed Métis Indian lends a hand. In Gabriel Du Pré “Bowen has taken the antihero of Hemingway and Hammett and brought him up to date . . . a fresh, memorable character” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
Coyote Wind: Newly discovered plane wreckage in the desert leads Du Pré to a hidden crime stretching back a generation.
 
 “Gabe’s rhythmic, regional voice and his sly wit take the novel to another level.” —Booklist
 
Specimen Song: In Washington, DC, to play his fiddle for a Smithsonian festival, Du Pré pursues a serial killer who’s targeting Native Americans.
 
 A “plain-spoken, deep-thinking Montana cattle inspector” takes on a serial killer in DC. —The New York Times Book Review
 
 “Bowen’s prose is often droll and his characters well-etched.” —Publishers Weekly
 
Wolf, No Wolf: When two activists agitating for the reintroduction of wolves into Montana’s high plains are murdered, Du Pré finds himself caught in the cross fire between ranchers, environmentalists, and FBI agents.
 
 “Fiddler, father, widower, cowboy and lover, Du Pré has the soul of a poet, the eye of a wise man, and the heart of a comic.” —The New York Times Book Review

The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré Volume One: Coyote Wind; Specimen Song; and Wolf, No Wolf

First in the crime-fiction series set in the modern-day west, starring a half-French, half-Indian “character of legendary proportions” (Ridley Pearson). 
 
 Officially, Gabriel Du Pré is the cattle inspector for Toussaint, Montana, responsible for making sure no one tries to sell livestock branded by another ranch. Unofficially, he is responsible for much more than cows’ backsides. The barren country around Toussaint is too vast for the town’s small police force, and so, when needed, this hard-nosed Métis Indian lends a hand. When the sheriff offers gas money to investigate newly discovered plane wreckage in the desert, Du Pré quickly finds himself embroiled in a mystery stretching back a generation.
 
 For three decades, the crashed plane sat in the sun as the bodies inside rotted away to their bones. Two skeletons are whole, but for one nothing remains but the hands, the skull, and the bullet that ended his life. The crime was hidden long ago, but in the Montana badlands, nothing stays buried forever . . .
 
 In Gabriel Du Pré, “Bowen has taken the antihero of Hemingway and Hammett and brought him up to date . . . a fresh, memorable character” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
Coyote Wind is the 1st book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Coyote Wind

“With his distinctive, minimalist prose . . . Bowen’s writing is lean. . . . An unsentimental, galvanizing portrait of life in small-town Montana” (Publishers Weekly).
 
 For generations, the Messmers have raised cattle in the rough country of eastern Montana. When the current owners die in a tragic accident, they leave the ranch to their son—an ominous development for everyone in the area. Larry Messmer left Toussaint years ago when he got in trouble for bludgeoning a horse to death. Gabriel Du Pré hoped he would never set eyes on him again. Larry announces his return by having his ranch hands kill every weak cow on the property. Unfortunately, the livestock will not be the last to die.
 
 The FBI asks Du Pré, a cattle inspector and occasional lawman, to keep an eye on Larry. What he uncovers is a ranch stricken by criminal greed, lorded over by a pathological son who should never have come home. And when violence erupts again, Du Pré finds himself in the cross hairs.

Long Son is the 6th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Long Son

A “plain-spoken, deep-thinking Montana cattle inspector” takes on a serial killer in DC (The New York Times Book Review).
 
 With misgivings, cattle inspector and sometime deputy Gabriel Du Pré has left his hometown of Toussaint, Montana, for big-city Washington, DC, where the Métis Indian fiddler has agreed to play his people’s music for a Smithsonian festival. But like the frightened and confused horse galloping wildly down the National Mall, Du Pré is very much out of his element. He does know how to catch and calm a runaway horse, however.
 
 If only catching a killer could be so simple. When a Cree woman from Canada who came to sing in the festival is found murdered, her death is just the first in a series of fatal attacks on Native Americans. Each killing is foretold by a shaman, and each time a primitive weapon is used. As the body count rises, Du Pré fears he might be the serial killer’s ultimate target.
 
New York Times–bestselling author Ridley Pearson says about Peter Bowen’s Montana mysteries: “The best of Tony Hillerman meets Zane Grey . . . Du Pré is a character of legendary proportions.” And Booklist calls Gabriel Du Pré “one of the most unusual characters working the fictional homicide beat.”

Specimen Song is the 2nd book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Specimen Song

A half-Indian, half-French deputy with “a shrewd mind and wry sense of humor” investigates a case of homicide on the range (The New York Times Book Review).
 
 Two men have been cutting fences at the ranches of Toussaint, Montana, loosing thousands of dollars’ worth of cattle to use as target practice for their .22 rifles. Are they thieves? Pranksters? Local cattle inspector and sometime deputy Gabriel Du Pré guesses they’re environmentalists, agitating for the reintroduction of native wolves to Montana’s high plains. Du Pré knows the perpetrators are trying to send a message to the ranchers of eastern Montana—he also has a hunch they’re already dead.

 When the activists are indeed found shot to death, Du Pré must figure out who used them for target practice. The FBI descends, but their agents are as clueless in this territory as the hapless victims were. Clearly, one of Toussaint’s citizens committed this crime, killing to protect the traditional way of ranching life, a loyalty Du Pré shares. But if anyone’s going to arrest his people, it will be the cattle inspector himself . . .
 
Wolf, No Wolf is the third in “a wonderfully eclectic and enjoyable series of interest to western crime readers, especially those favoring Montana authors C. J. Box, Craig Johnson, and Keith McCafferty as well as fans of the Hillermans” (Booklist).

Wolf, No Wolf is the 3rd book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Wolf, No Wolf

“[An] enjoyable series of interest to western crime readers, especially those favoring Montana authors C. J. Box, Craig Johnson, and Keith McCafferty as well as fans of the Hillermans” (Booklist).
 
 The news is bad: five young women—so far—raped, tortured, and left in the Montana wilderness to be devoured by coyotes. It’s not long before Gabriel Du Pré, Métis Indian cattle inspector and occasional deputy, gets the call from Sheriff Benny Klein, summoning him to yet another grisly crime scene—this time in his own backyard. Not far from the victim, he finds two more murdered women, their bodies arranged over each other in a cross. A message from the killer? But what does it mean?

 Working alongside a Blackfoot FBI agent and his feisty female partner, Du Pré, a father and grandfather with two daughters of his own, gives his all to the manhunt. But as more victims are found, and a young woman he cares about disappears, he will come to the grim realization that he must learn to think like this monster in order to catch him.

 “Like the most memorable creations in detective fiction, [Du Pré’s] moral center is unshakeable” (Booklist).

Notches is the 4th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Notches

“A terrific writer . . . Thunder Horse makes this reviewer want to race to the bookstore for the rest of the Gabriel Du Pré series” (Rocky Mountain News).
 
 Usually it takes more than one beer to make the Toussaint Saloon shake. When the earthquake hits, part-time deputy Gabriel Du Pré and his friends are lamenting the fishing resort a Japanese firm has planned for their small town. The floor trembles, the lights go out, and glass rains from the walls. When they emerge from the bar, they see a new landscape. Roads are mangled, mountains have shifted, and the spring where the Japanese businessmen had planned to build their resort is no more. In its place is an uprooted Indian burial ground—and a massive headache for Du Pré.
 
 As local Native American tribes fight over the ancient remains, a fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth is found in the hands of a murdered anthropologist. Du Pré had just wanted a beer. Instead he found a murder sixty-five million years in the making.

Thunder Horse is the 5th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Thunder Horse

A Montana deputy takes on a mining company that’s poisoning reservation children in a novel the Washington Post calls “wonderful [and] wise.” 
 
 Something is rotten in the Fort Belknap Reservation. Life has always been tough on this barren stretch just south of the Canadian border, but now the children are getting sick. While playing his fiddle in a reservation bar, part-time deputy Gabriel Du Pré meets an accordionist who suspects the children’s health defects and low test scores are connected to pollution from the nearby Persephone gold mine.
 
 Meanwhile, Du Pré investigates the disappearance of one of the afflicted children. When the boy turns up dead, the accordionist’s theory gains credence. It wouldn’t be the first time the rich men of Montana found wealth at the expense of the reservation’s kids. But is there something more than greed and indifference at work? Something even more sinister? Du Pré will make it his business to find out.
 
 “In other hands, melodrama could easily rear its head and trample the scenery, but Bowen has a firm grip on his large cast of interesting players . . . [in this] tale of grace vs. greed” (Publishers Weekly).

The Stick Game is the 7th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

The Stick Game

A deputy discovers Meriwether Lewis’s journal in this modern-day mystery by an author who “writes about the rural West better than anyone” (Rocky Mountain News).
 
 When he’s asked to serve as a consultant for a documentary about the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark’s expedition up the Missouri River, Gabriel Du Pré’s impulse is to flee. Eastern Montana isn’t accustomed to getting much attention, and its residents prefer it that way. But the director of the film is dating Du Pré’s daughter Maria, so this hard-bitten fiddler’s hands are tied.
 
 The Métis Indian lawman agrees to act as a guide and help the filmmakers navigate the river, which is as deadly now as it was in 1805. The Missouri has claimed nine lives in the past three years—a suspiciously high death toll the FBI wants Du Pré to investigate. While trolling the riverbanks, Du Pré stumbles upon a national treasure: Meriwether Lewis’s lost journals, which the American government will do anything to get back. Meanwhile, when members of the film crew start dying, Du Pré begins to wonder if the locals hate outsiders so much they might be willing to kill to keep them out.
 
 “Bowen’s exuberant storytelling mines the rich cultural history of the West . . . [and features] delightfully extravagant characters” (Publishers Weekly).

Cruzatte and Maria is the 8th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Cruzatte and Maria

In modern-day Montana, brushfires, meth dealers, and murder challenge a deputy in a mystery that’s “a pleasure to read” (Publishers Weekly).
 
 In the midst of a drought in Toussaint, Montana, Métis Indian tracker and cattle investigator Gabriel Du Pré learns that Maddy Collins has been killed—and goes looking for answers.
 
 Du Pré suspects a pair of boys who, despite their good upbringing, have fallen in with a gang of crystal meth dealers. Not long after the murder, they vanish. As the town is threatened by a forest fire, Du Pré puts his own life at risk to hunt for the two young men, not knowing whether they’re alive or dead. But if the inferno reaches Toussaint, no one will be safe.

Ash Child is the 9th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Ash Child

A mysterious cult takes over a ranch in this western thriller starring a crime solver who “resonates with originality and energy” (Chicago Tribune). 
 
 The Eides have owned cattle in Montana since 1882, but a few days after they pull up stakes and sell their property, their homestead goes up in flames. When Métis Indian investigator Gabriel Du Pré arrives on the scene, nothing is left but the ashes. A serene young man appears, insisting the fires were set purposely and firmly asking Du Pré to leave. He is a representative from the Host of Yahweh, the millennial cult that has purchased the sprawling ranch on the edge of the Badlands, and arson is just the beginning of their suspicious behavior.
 
 At first, the people of Toussaint try to ignore the secretive cult. But when Du Pré gets a tip from an FBI contact that seven Host of Yahweh defectors were recently shot to death, he takes another look at the glassy-eyed conclave. Behind their peaceful smiles, great evil lurks.
 
Badlands is the 10th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Badlands

“Truly mysterious—informed by Western legend, steeped in Indian superstition . . . Riding with Du Pré is some kind of enchantment” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
 A rumor circulates around academic circles that the long-lost journals of Meriwether Lewis are in the possession of a hard-bitten Montana fiddler named Gabriel Du Pré. A few years ago, the Métis Indian led a documentary film crew down the Missouri River to commemorate the bicentennial of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition, but he won’t say whether or not he has the journals. Only Benetsee, Du Pré’s mysterious spiritual guide, has any idea where the journals are, and only a fool would try to make Benetsee talk when he doesn’t feel like it.
 
 It’s quite possible, though, that billionaire Markham Millbank is a fool. His money cannot persuade Du Pré, and so he begins to consider other forms of pressure. When two of Du Pré’s friends are kidnapped, the fiddler faces a tough decision: Hand over the journal or risk innocent lives to keep it out of the wrong hands . . .

The Tumbler is the 11th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

The Tumbler

“Peter Bowen does for Montana what Tony Hillerman does for New Mexico” (Midwest Book Review).
 
 Gabriel Du Pré’s aunt Pauline has burned through more than her share of husbands, so it’s no surprise when she shows up in Toussaint complaining that the latest one, Badger, has run off. Du Pré, the Métis Indian fiddler, retired cattle inspector, and sometime deputy, agrees to go looking for her man. He finds him shot, execution-style, in the wilds of the Montana countryside. A chat with his contacts at the FBI reveals that Badger, a small-time drug smuggler, had been working for them since his last arrest. Pauline’s husband was bait, but the big fish got away.
 
 The last lead was to a cabal of wealthy gamblers who pass their time racing horses in the barren Montana brush. To infiltrate their tight-knit syndicate, Du Pré goes undercover, lining up his own horse and jockey. He must tread lightly, because horses are not the only things these men shoot.
 
 Gabriel Du Pré’s foray into the world of illegal horse racing is “as consistently entertaining as its predecessors. [Du Pré], ever skeptical of the modern world and its institutions, places his faith in people, the land, a hand-rolled smoke, and the occasional ditch-water highball” (Booklist).

Stewball is the 12th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Stewball

“Fiddler, father, widower, cowboy and lover, Du Pré has the soul of a poet, the eyes of a wise man, and the heart of a comic” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
 Gabriel Du Pré’s precocious granddaughter, Pallas, has returned from her Washington, DC, boarding school, and trouble seems to have come along for the ride. Du Pré’s girlfriend’s son, Chappie, is also back from serving in Iraq, minus one leg and one eye. As the family tries to help him adjust to civilian life, the town is invaded by a fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist sect, whose preacher is hell-bent on imposing his own beliefs on the easygoing people of Toussaint, where even the most pious prefer to keep God to themselves.
 
 Du Pré is content to ignore the evangelists, until a mountain hike turns up the body of a little girl. Although he has no hard evidence, instinct tells him that the fundamentalists may be to blame. Du Pré hunts the countryside for the young girl’s killer, wishing as always that the outside world would leave his beloved Montana alone.
 
 In this “admirable, highly original” series, “Du Pré, a Métis Indian, ignores the speed limit, smokes hand-rolled cigarettes and drinks whisky like it was water. He also plays fiddle like an angel, takes care of his friends and defends the weak with equal passion” (Publishers Weekly).

Nails is the 13th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Nails

“Bitter Creek is likely the top of the Du Pré series . . . Lively and absolutely fascinating” (Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall).
 
 Lt. John Patchen has come to Montana to persuade Chappie Plaquemines, his former gunnery sergeant in Iraq, to accept the Navy Cross. First, however, Patchen must find the wounded marine, who was last seen drinking heavily in the Toussaint Saloon. With the help of Gabriel Du Pré, who’s romantically involved with Chappie’s mother, he locates 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 Métis Indians who were last seen fleeing from Gen. Black Jack Pershing’s troops in 1910, before disappearing.
 
 Strange voices within the sweat lodge speak of a place called Bitter Creek, where the Métis encountered their fate. To find it, Du Pré 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 Pré to Pardoe, an out-of-the-way crossroads north of Helena, he senses they’re about to uncover long-buried secrets. Discouraged by the US military with their lives threatened by locals whose ancestors may have played a role in the murders, Chappie, Patchen, and Du Pré bravely pursue the truth so the victims of a terrible injustice might finally rest in peace.
 
Bitter Creek is the 14th book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Bitter Creek

Gabriel Du Pré is back in action, coming to the aid of a whistleblower on the run, in this all-new novel in a “wonderfully eclectic and enjoyable series” (Booklist).

 When a hunted military whistleblower and his family need someplace to hide and someone to trust, Toussaint, Montana, is the place, and Gabriel Du Pré the man. The Métis Indian former cattle inspector and sometimes deputy is happy to offer protection, even though he’s already got his hands full with an ailing granddaughter, a meddling medicine man, and a Kazakh eagle hunter prowling the hills above town.
 
 As a guard at a Kabul prison, Hoyt Poe witnessed his fellow soldiers abusing the Afghan inmates. Poe’s testimony threatens to expose the military contractor that led the prison’s brutal interrogation program. Now, Temple Security’s billionaire founder, Lloyd Cutler, wants him dead. But how long can the fugitive and his family lay low before Cutler’s mercenaries come to Du Pré’s hometown looking for trouble?
 
 Packed with pulse-pounding suspense, wry humor, and the romance of small-town Montana, Solus continues the irresistible adventures of the one of a kind Gabriel Du Pré, “a character of legendary proportions” (New York Times–bestselling author Ridley Pearson).
 
 Solus is the 15th book in the Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré - The book series

The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré - The book series

The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré books in order

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