"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 and  Horse Lay This Body Down , the third Gideon Stoltz Mystery, takes place in 1837 during one of the most horrific periods in pre-Civil War America, when human beings were considered chattel and both northern and southern states grew rich from slave labor. A Pennsylvania sheriff like Gideon could choose to uphold the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 or defy that racist law at great peril. In this hard-hitting, action-packed novel, Gideon tries to protect a boy who has fled north from a Virginia plantation – and pays dearly for his principles. Written with the vivid, atmospheric prose that imbues the whole series, the life and times of an early American backwoods town and its hardscrabble citizens will grip readers as Gideon and his wife True solve a murder, bust a kidnapping ring, and help one unforgettable boy who courageously chooses freedom above all else. Praise for LAY THIS BODY DOWN   "Set in 1837, Fergus’s fine third Gideon Stoltz mystery (after 2021’s Nighthawk’s Wing) vividly recreates pre–Civil War tensions in the service of a gripping whodunit. . . . Fergus’s plotting matches his superior historical detail. This series merits a long run." — Publishers Weekly   " Lay This Body Down (the third novel in author Charles Fergus 'Gideon Stoltz Mystery Series) is a hard-hitting, action-packed story of how Gideon tries to protect a boy who has fled north from a Virginia plantation—and pays dearly for his principles. Written with the vivid, atmospheric prose that imbues the whole series, the life and times of an early American backwoods town and its hardscrabble citizens will grip readers . . . Original and deftly scripted, Lay This Body Down will have special appeal to readers with an interest in historical mysteries and suspense thrillers that are written with a distinctive literary style. . . . [H]ighly recommended for community library Mystery/Suspense collections." — Midwest Book Review   "The Gideon Stoltz mystery I’ve been waiting for. . . . The first two installments in the series,  A Stranger Here Below  and  Nighthawk’s Wing , were interesting and suspenseful in their own right, but Charles Fergus has pulled everything together in  Lay This Body Down . This third book sees Stoltz wrestling with the the issue of slavery, specifically free and formerly enslaved African Americans and those who wanted to see them in bondage. This is the first time that Fergus has connected in a significant way the happenings in the town of Adamant and the broader national context. Doing so made me more invested in the story–I think other readers will respond positively as well. I also appreciated the attention to historical detail and the inclusion of original sources (i.e., ads for enslaved runaways) at the beginning of each chapter.” —Mark R. Cheatem, Jacksonian America   “In this powerful and moving novel, Charles Fergus shows how far into the supposedly ‘free’ North the fingers of slavery reached in the early 19th century, forcing many to choose between the law and their consciences. Lay This Body Down isn’t just a wonderfully tangled mystery, it’s a window into a time when the nation’s soul was in doubt.”— Scott Weidensaul, New York Times bestselling author of A World on the Wing   “Charles Fergus has an uncanny gift for transporting a reader back into the past, making the historical personal as seen through the eyes of haunted young Sheriff Gideon Stoltz. Lay This Body Down is a tale of richly textured suspense that brings to life the plight of fugitive slaves in rural 1830s Pennsylvania.” — Paul Doiron, author of The Poacher’s Son and Dead by Dawn   “Charles Fergus continues his series of historical mystery novels set on the Appalachian frontier of Pennsylvania before the Civil War. In his account of the remote, often violent community of Adamant, and in the person his young sheriff Gideon Stoltz, the author achieves an imaginative recreation of that time and place, one having color, drama, and authority.”— Castle Freeman, Jr., author of The Devil in the Valley   “Deftly plotted, lyrically observant and casting a keen eye on events of the past that resonate with us today, this third volume places the Gideon Stoltz series on solid ground. Fergus has created a memorable core cast which delivers an engrossing read while leaving me curious as to what comes next.”— Jeffrey Lent, author of In the Fall   “In his new novel, Lay This Body Down, Charles Fergus spins a heartrending and complicated web of mystery and suspense that is uniquely American. A murder has been committed and a young slave boy is on the run from the horrors of his captivity. Both collide in the mind of a novice sheriff who must put the puzzle piec