Night of the White Buffalo

At the start of Coel’s compelling 18th mystery set on Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation (after 2013’s Killing Custer), a man enters the confessional to tell Fr. John O’Malley he has committed murder, then runs away before the priest can identify him. Weeks later, attorneys Vicky Holden and Adam Lone Eagle find Dennis Carey, who operates a buffalo ranch on the reservation, shot dead in his pickup. His widow, Sheila, reveals that a white buffalo calf, considered sacred to the Plains tribes, was recently born on the ranch. As local authorities prepare for a surge of visitors, Vicky and Father John investigate rumors that several of the Careys’ hired hands have disappeared. When the owner of a local employment agency who sent the missing cowboys to the Carey ranch is shot, they realize they’re up against a merciless killer. Coel deftly inscribes Arapaho tradition and culture into the Western landscape, portraying both the grace and the squalor of reservation life. [em]Agent: Rick Henshaw, Richard Henshaw Group. (Sept.) [/em]