Margaret Coel is back with a new “Wind River Mystery.” In Night of the White Buffalo, we see the welcome return of Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and Father John O’Malley, who team up to solve an intricate murder mystery.

First, Father John hears the confession of a man who says he murdered someone. A couple of months later Vicky discovers local rancher Dennis Carey “shot dead in his truck along the Blue Sky Highway.” Not long after, it is revealed that a white buffalo, “the most sacred creature in Native American mythology,” was recently born on Carey’s ranch. There is a sudden influx of pilgrims on the reservation, drawn to see the “miraculous animal.”

Vicky and Father John investigate the murder in the midst of the turmoil of all the visitors. Meanwhile, three cowboys disappear from Carey’s ranch, prompting the suspicion that they may have something to do with his murder.

This is the eighteenth installment of these “Wind River” mysteries, set on the reservation in Wyoming. Coel, who has been called a “master” by Tony Hillerman, draws from her extensive knowledge of the Arapaho Indians to make her novels ring true in so many ways. She is a long-time resident of Boulder, Colorado.

Another notable Colorado author is Sandra Dallas, who also has a new novel out, Fallen Women. This one is set in Denver in the summer of 1885. The heroine is Beret Osmundsen, a wealthy New York socialite, who has been estranged from her younger sister, Lillie, for a year.

When Beret receives word  from her aunt and uncle that Lillie has died suddenly in Denver, she looks into the circumstances of Lillie’s death and finds that she was working as a prostitute and was murdered in the brothel where she was living. Beret travels to Denver, determined to find her sister’s murderer.

Refusing to be deterred by Denver police detective Mick McCauley, she stays on the trail, which takes her from “the dangerous, seedy underworld of Denver’s tenderloin” to the highest levels of society.

Sandra Dallas is a masterful storyteller who writes with intricate detail to deliver “a page-turner filled with mystery, intrigue, and…[who] transports you to another time and place.”

Ken Follett is back with the 1,100 page conclusion to his “Century Trilogy.” Book Three is called The Edge of Eternity. (Book One: Fall of Giants; Book Two: Winter of the World.)

This masterful epic follows the fates of five intertwined families—American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh—“as they make their way through the twentieth century.” In this third and final volume, the time is the 1960s through the 1980s, “encompassing civil rights, assassinations, Vietnam, the Berlin wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution—and rock and roll.”

The many characters in this saga “find their lives inextricably entangled as they add their personal stories and insights to the most defining events of the twentieth century.” New York Times Book Review: “Follett is masterly in conveying so much drama and historical information so vividly.”

The Gilpin County Public Library’s Book Fair at Barnes & Noble, in Denver West, is scheduled for Thursday, September 25, and will run all day. What this means is that anybody who buys anything from the store on that day, and who says they support the library while doing so, will enable a percentage of the sale to benefit the Friends of the Gilpin County Library. As an added feature to the Book Fair, we will have Colorado author Bailey Cates on hand from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. to sign books in her “Magical Bakery” series of mysteries. Come out and support the Friends in their annual Barnes & Noble fundraiser.

Then come to the library on Friday and Saturday, October 10 and 11, for the Friends’ big Fall Book and Bake Sale. You are guaranteed to find genuine literary gems at bargain-basement prices, and delicious baked goods as well.

When you support the Friends, you help fund the Summer Reading Program for kids, the annual artist-in-residence program, spring and fall film series, poetry readings, weekly pre-school story hours, and a host of other things not covered in the regular library budget. In fair weather and foul, the Friends are always there for the library, and you should be there for them!