TELLURIDE TOP OF THE WORLD is the sequel to Tom Tatum's first novel FIJI 1970. In the late 1970s, Cooper Stuart has returned to his sprawling historic mountain family ranch near Telluride. His widowed mother is managing the ranch with ever increasing bank loans. In Telluride, the Ajax Ski Company is determined to rule its future. After a hundred years, the gold and silver mines are playing out. The Ajax Ski Company owner made a fortune in the postwar uranium boom near Telluride. Cooper's foray into Telluride takes him into the cocaine fueled ski and hot tub scene. Joe Bear Spirit, a Ute Indian Vietnam helicopter pilot and Indian Water Right's activist throws in with Cooper on the YBarC. Judy rides the range with Cooper on her champion barrel racing horse and Adrianna, descended from centuries of Spanish gold mining witches, also joins to help save the YBarC 's rangeland and water rights from the forces that would destroy one of the Americas' most remote and beautiful places. Pull on boot cut jeans, strap on spurs and lever a bullet into a saddle rifle for a Four Corners adventure centered in the smoldering stewpot of Telluride.

THE YEAR IS 2019 - WHEN NEW WEST MEETS OLD WEST IN THIS FAST-PACED, ACTION-FILLED SAGA. After Cooper and Judy Stuart's epic battle to save the big YbarC ranch near Telluride Colorado, their son, Trey, is sent to operate the families sprawling Ute Peak Ranch near Taos, New Mexico. The deadly action unspools when Trey is summoned by his father to the YbarC to run the families New Mexico ranch. Headed to the ranch in his father's Maserati, he meets Maria Duran or M, as her friends call her. Maria drives a restored Shelby Mustang, drag races and rides fast horses. While Trey, M and the cowhands' work the ranch bullets fly from the new Aztec cartel drug gangs and tension flares in New Mexico's Anglo, Spanish and Pueblo Indian cultures over land and water.

A true pioneer of the West, Harriet Backus writes about her amusing and often challenging experiences with heart felt emotion and vivid detail. New foreword by Pam Houston and afterword by author's grandson Rob Walton are featured.