2022 National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist for Western Fiction 2021 International Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society Book Award Winner for Historical Fiction in Event/Era 2021 Phillip H. McMath Post Publication Book Award Finalist for Prose 2021 Oklahoma Book Award Finalist for Fiction from the Oklahoma Center for the Book 2021 Spur Award Finalist for Historical Novel from the Western Writers of America 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist for Historical Fiction (Pre-1900s) 2021 Will Rogers Medallion Award Finalist for Western Fiction  2021 Peacemaker Award Finalist for Best First Novel 2020 Arkansas Gem from the Arkansas Center for the Book Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is an origin story in the true American tradition. Before Bass Reeves could stake his claim as the most successful nineteenth-century American lawman, arresting more outlaws than any other deputy during his thirty-two-year career as a deputy U.S. marshal in some of the most dangerous regions of the Wild West, he was a slave. After a childhood picking cotton, Reeves became an expert marksman under his master's tutelage, winning shooting contests throughout the region. His skill had serious implications, however, as the Civil War broke out. Reeves was given to his master's mercurial, sadistic, Moby-Dick -quoting son in the hopes that Reeves would keep him safe in battle. The ensuing humiliation, love, heroics, war, mind games, and fear solidified Reeves's determination to gain his freedom and drew him one step further on his fated path to an illustrious career. Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is an important historical work that places Reeves in the pantheon of American heroes and a thrilling historical novel that narrates a great man's exploits amid the near-mythic world of the nineteenth-century frontier. "Fearless and unflinching, Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is a magnificent work of historical fiction. The characters and the times in which they lived are intensely and beautifully realized, and every line rings with authenticity....Its truths are ever so urgent."-- Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World: A Novel "Sidney Thompson has the ability to pull you into the narrative and give you a glimpse of the antebellum life of a young slave destined for greatness as a lawman....Highly recommended."-- Art T. Burton, author of Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves "This novel, like all the best historical fiction, reminds us that the most memorable events in our history, events we think we know and understand, happened in specific minutes, hours, and days to individuals every bit as complicated and contradictory as you or I.There are no easy answers here, no broad strokes. This is not a book about slavery. This is a book about people. About a person. About-- beautifully, deeply, compellingly -- one specific, perfectly human, man."-- Susan Perabo, author of The Fall of Lisa Bellow: A Novel "Thompson's historical novel delivers an unforgettable character based on a true American hero...a believable coming-of-age story that echoes Huckleberry Finn in its realism and social observation."-- Michael Ray Taylor, The Commercial Appeal "A fascinating look at life in northwest Arkansas in the years before and during the Civil War, when the future lawman came of age and ultimately made his break for freedom. The rest of the trilogy is likely to be just as intriguing, especially because that's the way the real Bass Reeves lived his life."-- Glen Seeber, The Oklahoman "When you're gifted with the fine sense of characterization Thompson deploys, even the unsubtle subject of slavery grows subtler...Thompson, once one of Barry Hannah's students at University of Mississippi, is a highly entertaining writer, and his Bass Reeves emerges as an intelligent, reluctantly violent, sympathetic young man." -- John Mort, The Clarion-Ledger "Fearless and unflinching, Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is a magnificent work of historical fiction. The characters and the times in which they lived are intensely and beautifully realized, and every line rings with authenticity....Its truths are ever so urgent."-- Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World: A Novel "Sidney Thompson has the ability to pull you into the narrative and give you a glimpse of the antebellum life of a young slave destined for greatness as a lawman....Highly recommended."-- Art T. Burton, author of Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves "This novel, like all the best historical fiction, reminds us that the most memorable events in our history, events we think we know and understand, happened in specific minutes, hours, and days to individuals every bit as complicated and contradictory as you or I. There are no easy answers here, no broad strokes. This is not a book about slavery. This is a book about people. About a person. About -- beautifully, deep