A Stranger Here Below: A Gideon Stolz Mystery

Set in 1835, this underwhelming series launch from Fergus (Shadow Catcher) introduces 22-year-old Gideon Stolz, the sheriff of Pennsylvania’s Colerain County, who faces his greatest professional challenge in the case of a friend, Judge Hiram Biddle. After Hiram fails to show up for a planned hunt, Gideon finds him dead in his study, sitting in a chair facing a recently fired shotgun. There’s no note near the corpse, but Gideon accepts the obvious verdict of suicide and devotes himself to understanding why the judge killed himself. He comes to believe that the truth may be connected with an old crime. In 1805, the Rev. Thomas McEwan confessed to the bludgeoning murder of Nat Thompson, with whom he got into a fight, and Biddle was the judge who sentenced the clergyman to hang. Gideon is dumbfounded to learn that his friend was engaged to the executed convict’s daughter. Lengthy excerpts from the judge’s diary slow the action, and Fergus’s depictions of the period are merely serviceable. Few will look forward to Stolz’s further adventures. Agent: Natalia Aponte, Aponte Literary. (Mar.)