“Deadly Heist,” by Seven B. Epstein (Black Lyon Publishing)

On Father’s Day morning in June 1991, a gunman entered United Bank, murdered four guards, terrified several tellers and escaped with $200,000 in a gym bag. Days later, police arrested retired cop James King.

The vicious killings and the subsequent trial of King riveted Denver. The city put forward its best prosecutors, while King was defended by the renown Walter Gerash. The trial lasted for weeks, and jury deliberation took a record nine days.

The prosecution had a tough challenge. There was no physical evidence. The killer left no fingerprints, there were no operable security cameras, and the terrified tellers were unable to pick out King’s photo from a group of photographs (although they later said they recognized him).

King claimed that during the few minutes of the robbery, he’d been at the Cheesman Park community center hoping to play chess but found no one there. Neighbors insisted they saw King working in his yard. Police found no trace in King’s house of the clothes the killer wore and none of the cash. And they found no damning evidence in a security box King had rented days after the robbery, ostensibly to store computer discs.

True Crime writer Steven B. Epstein has done extensive research into the bank robbery and subsequent trial for “Deadly Heist.” While many of the participants in the investigation and trial are dead — King died in 2013 of dementia — Epstein tracked down several including the jury forewoman. The author doesn’t solve the crime, so readers will be left in the dark — but then nobody’s ever figured out who did it. For some reason, the author makes up quotes, which is always annoying in a book that purports to tell the truth. But that’s a small criticism. For the most part, “Deadly Heist” is an absorbing account of one of Colorado’s most horrendous crimes.

“Billy the Kid: The Life Behind the Legend,” by George R. Matthews (McFarland & Co. Publishers)

Do we really need another book on Billy the Kid? Oh, well, why not? Billy Bonney, Henry Antrim, Henry McCarty, Billy Kid or whatever name he went by, Billy the Kid is an American anti-hero. Even before his death, Billy was the subject of national and international fascination. Newspapers and even books elaborated on his exploits for an audience willing to believe the worst about the Kid.

Billy’s reputation as a gun-toting desperado who terrorized the Southwest may have influenced New Mexico Gov. Lew Wallace to go back on his promise in 1879 to pardon the Kid for his testimony against other killers.

In fact, in New Mexico author George R. Matthews’ account, Billy was not a vicious murderer. Mostly he rustled cattle. He was popular, especially among Hispanics, because he spoke Spanish so well. Other outlaws were far more deadly. Billy might have disappeared from history if Gov. Wallace had pardoned him. But that was not to be.

Matthews has done yeoman work in researching the young outlaw, and “Billy the Kid” is filled with sometimes mind-numbing facts. Matthews has produced a few new nuggets about the popular outlaw that will make “Billy the Kid” must-read history for fans of Wild West outlaws.

“When Montana Outraced the East,” by Catharine Mellin Moser

Copper King Marcus Daily was so enamored with his racehorse Tammany that he had a hardwood mosaic of the animal instilled in the barroom floor of his hotel in Anaconda, Mont. He refused to step foot on the mosaic and would often gaze at and say, “That’s my baby.”

Daily had reason to revere the horse. For a time, Tammany was America’s most famous racehorse. He came out of the West. He won nine of 14 starts and outdistanced an Eastern favorite, Lamplighter, in one of the races of the century. Tammany proved that Western-bred racehorses were the equal of anything Kentucky could produce.

For a few years in the late 19th century, three Montana millionaires challenged horse breeders in the East. The Montana men built elaborate stables, imported thoroughbreds and shipped them to Montana There, the horses thrived on cold winters and natural grasses. They won race after race, to the delight not just of their owners but to Montana’s copper workers as well.

But the era was short-lived, lasting barely a decade. Montana historian Catharine Melin-Moser spent years compiling information on Montana’s brief horse-racing industry. The book is heavy enough on race statistics to make some readers’ eyes glaze over. Nonetheless, this well-written and fascinating account of a little-known era in horse racing is a significant contribution to Western history.

Sandra Dallas is a Denver-based author and book reviewer.