A good mystery in historical, and correct!!!, New York City!!

With Edgar Allen Poe as a main star of the story, you can't go wrong. ( )

New York, the sweltering summer of 1841: Mary Rogers, a beautiful counter girl at a popular Manhattan tobacco shop, is found brutally murdered in the Hudson River. John Colt, scion of the firearm fortune, beats his publisher to death with a hatchet. And young Irish gang leader Tommy Coleman is accused of killing his daughter, his wife, and his wife's former lover. Charged with solving it all is High Constable Jacob Hays, the city's first detective. Capping a long and distinguished career, Hays's investigation will involve gang wars, grave robbers, and clues hidden in poems by that master of dark tales, Edgar Allen Poe.

This book sounds as if it had everything going for it, a true life murder and a connection to a famous person. Then I started to read it and gave up after 70 pages. Maybe I haven’t given it a fair go but I felt like I was reading a documentary or a newspaper report. The book had no flow and the characters were flat due to very little dialogue. I really didn’t fancy a whole book in this fashion, so I have given up and googled about the murder instead. ( )

This is an intriguing, if flawed book, and it's certainly not for everyone. If you're looking for a murder mystery (and that sort of plot pacing) look elsewhere. If you enjoy languorous period character pieces, full of somewhat squalid details and a good bit of depravity, this one's for you. As inspiration for the book, Rose looks to one of the famous unsolved murders in NYC history, the killing of The Beautiful Cigar Girl, Mary Rogers in 1841. In real life, the case was chockablock with drama, and Rose doesn't manage to quite capture it, in part, I suspect, because the novel focusses on 69-year old High Constable Jacob Hays, known as Old Hays. He isn't a terribly dynamic character, although not without his plodding charm. Mary Rogers, a tobacconist clerk was a somewhat famous (notorious?) Professional Beauty. Her admiring customers included authors such as James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe. When her mutilated body is discovered, Old Hays begins to investigate.

It is a meandering, somewhat aimless plot which never, alas, quite coalesces, and without giving anything away, the ending is unsatisfying. Throughout the novel are old, and seemingly pointless tense shifts -- some chapters in present tense, others in past -- as well as intermittent passages mimicking newspaper reports of the era. Such prose manipulation draws attention to itself, and I couldn't help but wonder what effect the author was trying to achieve. The newspaper report passages were often dull and I found myself losing interest. Whatever the author's intention, for this reader, he didn't succeed.

The portrait of NYC during this period -- that of Gangs of New York -- full of opium dens and marauding thugs such as the Short Tails and the Forty Little Thieves, is quite fascinating, and it's clear Rose has done his research (perhaps even a bit too much of it). Poe, who is center stage, for much of the novel, is a pathetic, somewhat enigmatic figure. Those seeking a novel based on Poe's life will be, I fear, disappointed. Old Hays, as noted above, is not altogether engaging.

I wish the novel had been 100 pages shorter and with a tighter focus. I think the pacing would have been much improved. Having said that, however, there were parts of the novel, such as the prison scenes with Mr. Colt (of the gun fame) and gang leader Tommy Coleman, deeply engrossing. It's clear the author has considerable talent. This may well be a case where a good writer needed a firmer, and more experienced, editor. ( )

This novel focuses mainly on two actual murders that took place in 1841 New York City -- a city full of gangs, political corruption, social discontent, and an inflammatory news press. How these murders touched the lives of the rich and famous and raised hue and cry all over the city is explored in the novel.

Halfway through, however, the novel shifts focus from the murders and murderers to Edgar Allan Poe, now a suspect for the murder of Mary Rogers. As a known acquaintance to murderer, John Colt, brother of Samuel Colt (of firearms fame) and to the murdered cigar store girl Mary Rogers, and as author of The Mystery of Marie Roget (based on the murder of the cigar girl), Poe gets the attention of veteran High Constable John Hays. Readers are now able to examine the life of Poe and his consumptive, child-wife, Sissy, always on the edge of poverty, eking out a meager subsistence on his writing - but is he a murderer? Hays, with his interest in 'physiognomy', seems to think he might be.

IMO, the book is stronger in its historical fiction aspects, (it has an authentic flavor), than in its investigative aspect. If you are fascinated by real-life murder cases, 19th century NY, or Poe, I would recommend it. It is well-written and obviously well-researched, bit IMO it is the history that drives the novel, not any murder mystery, murder investigation, or thrilling pursuit of criminals. ( )

I read this book some time ago so I don't remember the specifics quite as much. As I was reading The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl, I remembered having read this book which also included Edgar Allan Poe as a character. While it was not the most enjoyable book that I've read, it was a more enjoyable read than Pearl's book. ( )