Charles Fergus is the author of twenty books. Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Geraldine Brooks called Fergus's first Gideon Stoltz mystery, A Stranger Here Below, "deeply imagined and intricately plotted . . . Fergus knows certain things deep in the bone: horses, hunting, the folkways of rural places, and he weaves this wisdom into a stirring tale." A native of Pennsylvania, Fergus now lives in Vermont's remote Northeast Kingdom with his wife, the writer Nancy Marie Brown, and four horses. http: //www.charlesfergus.com
In Praise of Nighthawk's Wing: "Nighthawk's Wing is a marvel. A
rich story, masterfully told. Fergus has such a fine eye for
details of landscape and period that both rooted me in a very
familiar place, but an unfamiliar time." - Scott Weidensaul, author
of A World on the Wing "A beautifully written page-turner...a rich
and moving story that puts Fergus solidly among the ranks of
Vermont's best fiction writers." -The Barton Chronicle "Set in
1836, Fergus's superior sequel ... brings the period to life as he
expertly melds setting and plot. Eleanor Kuhns fans will be
pleased." - Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "Nighthawk's Wing is
the second in author Fergus's mystery series set in the 1800s in
Pennsylvania Dutch country. It is an accomplished crime novel,
unraveling truths as Gideon questions witnesses about the last days
of Rebecca's life and eliminating falsehoods as he pieces together
evidence and observations. It keenly reflects on attitudes and
grievances held by members of different religions, cultures, and
native languages and suspicions of women unwilling to be confined
by their expected roles. It also warmly details time and place and
finely depicts tensions between a husband and wife in grief. The
narrative stokes Gideon's restless guilt and captures Rebecca's
tumult in the form of an imaginary nighthawk companion. More than a
down-to-earth procedural, Nighthawk's Wing takes flight."-
Historical Novels Review "What a fantastic book! Strong, well-drawn
characters, rich attention to natural detail, and a haunting
narrative make this a series to get excited about." - Paul Doiron,
author of the Mike Bowditch Mystery Series "This beautifully
written mystery combines harsh realities with moments of sheer
wonder. A murder mystery that has at its heart a praise hymn to
America's rural past." - Patricia Bracewell, author of the Emma of
Normandy trilogy "Spellbinding historical fiction. Fergus is a
wonderful writer who will entrance you with his sense of time and
place." - Kate Flora, author of Death Comes Knocking "An intricate
mystery alive with well-paced narrative and brutal realism." -
Castle Freeman, Jr., author of The Devil in the Valley "I
absolutely loved Nighthawk's Wing - I read it straight through in
one day, and it's haunted me ever since." - Kristen Lindquist,
Tourists in the Known World "High-tension, high-stakes law
enforcement and crime solving in a fascinating culture of
immigration, frontier, and survival in early America." - Beth
Kanell, author of The Long Shadow "An atmospheric page-turner . . .
I was borne away by Nighthawk's Wing, and you will be too." - Edith
Maxwell, author of the Agatha Award-winning Quaker Midwife
Mysteries "A darkly engrossing tale in which a young sheriff
struggles to understand and unravel not only the workings of the
complex and dangerous souls he encounters, but his own tortured
soul as well." - Jeffrey Lent, author of In the Fall "A fresh and
original take on the historical mystery, Nighthawk's Wing fills the
stage with characters whose concerns will resonate uncannily with
those of twenty-first century readers." - Tim Weed, author of A
Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing "Fergus's measured pace, rich
with the feel of the raw, unsettled landscape and its fragile human
bonds, provides a depth to the double mystery: the crime, and how
to reinvent a marriage after a child's death. Not until the very
end of the book will the answers become clear--and the pain and
loss along the way are vivid and visceral. In the tradition of
Jeffrey Lent's In the Fall, Erik Larson's The Devil in the White
City, and even Nathaniel Hawthorne's early American novels,
NIGHTHAWK'S WING melds human frailty and strength into the very
texture of the place and time, creating a mystery that will call
for multiple readings that savor its layers and
revelations."--Kingdom Books review "I found myself rushing
through--or maybe even ignoring--necessary tasks to return to
Fergus' book and Colerain County. I appreciated being fully engaged
in the book's fictional world, especially because it has stayed
with me long after finishing the story."--Elaine Meder-Wilgus,
BookMark, WPSU Public Radio In Praise of A Stranger Here Below:
"Some writers are natural story tellers and have an instinct for
the reader's interest. Others have the ability to invoke mood or a
sense of place. Still others are able to handle landscape or have
the ability to invoke precise imagery. Every now and then you will
find a writer who has all of these qualities, and because of that
they invoke the magic of fiction. They make the chair you are
sitting on disappear. Charles Fergus is one of those writers, and A
Stranger Here Below is one of those books. - Craig Nova, author of
All the Good Yale Men and The Good Son"The kind of mystery Lee
Child would have Jack Reacher tackleif he placed a story in the
1830s." - Michael McMenamin, author of The Liebold Protocol "Deeply
imagined and intricately plotted, A Stranger Here Below marries
richly textured historical fiction with the urgency of a mystery
novel. Fergus knows certain things, deep in the bone: horses,
hunting, the folkways of rural places, and he weaves this wisdom
into a stirring tale." - Geraldine Brooks, author of March and
People of the Book "Imbued with Michael Connelly's gumshoe skills
and the vivid historical descriptions of Charles Frazier, A
Stranger Here Below is a stark procedural set in the backwoods of
Pennsylvania circa 1830. Charles Fergus displays a deft touch in
detailing the rough and tumble life of everyday 19th-century
America." - Brad Smith, author of The Return of Kid Cooper and the
Virgil Cain mysteries "With luminous and deftly sketched prose,
Charles Fergus takes us into an American past that is both deeply
familiar and utterly strange, through the eyes and thoughts of a
young man who is a stranger to his newly chosen community. Sheriff
Gideon Stoltz patiently unravels a series of crimes and secrets,
while also examining his own life, his past, and the beauties and
tragedies of life itself." - Jeffrey Lent, author of Before We
Sleep and In the Fall "A dark, engrossing tale that introduces a
decent, sympathetic hero in the young sheriff Gideon Stoltz. The
novel's special strength, however, is its imaginative saturation in
the community of Adamant, a violent, haunted place of dreams and
visions, a place as hard and unforgiving as its name." - Castle
Freeman, Jr., author of The Devil in the Valley "In Gideon Stoltz,
Charles Fergus has created a unique 19th-century Eastern lawman who
struggles not only with wrongdoers but with his own griefs and
travails. A Stranger Here Below kept me reading late into the
night." - Dan O'Brien, author of The Indian Agent and Stolen Horses
"Fergus puts you firmly in Gideon Stoltz's rough-hewn world where a
'foreigner' with the wrong accent has to watch his back even if he
wears a sheriff's badge. A cracking good mystery, and a window to
the time when our young country was still a dark and treacherous
place." - Scott Weidensaul, author of The First Frontier "Charles
Fergus's gifts for invoking time and place empower him to tell an
irresistible tale of extraordinary people and the past that haunts
them." - Paul Schullery, author of The Time Traveler's Tale and
Diamond Jubilee
"[A] rich novel of a distant time and a man who is "Othered" in
most aspects of his life . . . Although the book is clearly crime
fiction, it is equally an exploration of the soul in the presence
of death and wrongdoing. Which is, after all, what a "stranger here
below" can expect." -- The New York Journal of Books "A writer of
nonfiction about the natural world, Fergus brings his appreciation
for nature to this well-paced blend of mystery and western. Gideon
is a classic lawman, tough when he has to be but able to weep when
an influenza epidemic rips through town, leaving empty cradles in
its wake. An appealing debut that deserves a boost from
enthusiastic hand-sellers."--Booklist "Simply put, I loved this
novel. It works as a compelling and complex historical mystery, but
it's more. The characters struggle mightily with the evil around
them, trying to find purpose in a world that is frequently brutal
and unforgiving. But they carry on. They find meaning in their
connections to others, in song, in following dogs into thickets.
Their lives are perpetually caught between beauty and violence,
compassion and cruelty, love and hate. . . . The details, whether
of a grouse's feathers or a horse's gait or burning charcoal for an
iron mill, are flawless. Fergus has a curious naturalist's
attention to detail. This is a gem. I hope we see more of Gideon
Stoltz in the future." --Matthew Miller, Nature.com, The Nature
Conservancy blog "If you've grown tired of formulaic mysteries and
thrillers, then you're in for a treat with A Stranger Here Below .
. . The characters are built not from cliches, but through Fergus's
deft descriptions of their thoughts, desires, and secrets, all
while creating a tone that keeps the reader entranced . . . A
pleasure to read. -- Elaine Meder-Wilgus, WPSU's BookMark
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