Night of the White Buffalo

July 21, 2014
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. Agent: Rick Henshaw, Richard Henshaw Group.

September 1, 2014

In the latest installment (after Killing Custer) in this long-running series, Fr. John O'Malley hears a penitent confess to murder and then flee. Two months later, Arapaho lawyer Vicki Holden finds the body of a rancher. Then some astonishing news, a sacred white buffalo calf has been born, complicating an already difficult investigation. How are the two incidents connected?

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2014
A blessing is followed by a curse at the Broken Buffalo ranch, owned by Dennis and Sheila Carey on the Arapaho reservation. The week after the birth of a white buffalo calfconsidered by Native Americans to be a sacred message that the Creator is with the peopleDennis Carey is murdered, apparently by someone he knew. Sheila Carey fingers disgruntled ranch hand Rick Tomlin, who has disappeared, failing even to appear at the trial of Arnie Walkfast, Vicky Holden's client, whom Tomlin accused of assault. Father John O'Malley, puzzling over a murder confession from an anonymous cowboy months earlier, pieces together the disappearance of six hands from the Broken Buffalo, their work confirmed by Ranchlands Employment owner Steve Mantle, who is soon after murdered in his office with his records stolen. Both Holden, who comes to a crossroads in her relationship with Adam Lone Eagle, and O'Malley are at risk when they discover the dreadful truth. The white buffalo calf adds an element of spiritualism to this eighteenth entry in the consistently strong Wind River series, with the Holden-O'Malley relationship still simmering as something more than friendship.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)