It took me a while to get into this book, which is written in a weird and abrupt style, at times imitating 19th-century newspapers. It's also very slow and at times repetitive - and it's not really a murder mystery, despite the title. But, just when I was thinking I might give up, I found myself hooked! The novel is set in the world of 'Gangs of New York', and paints a fascinating portrait of the 19th-century underworld, centring on the real unsolved murder of Mary Rogers, the beautiful cigar gi...

I was kinda disappointed with this one. It bills itself as a "novel of murder," so I was thinking, duh, it was a murder mystery. There is a murder, a bunch actually, but the book is more a series of episodes in the lives of certain well-known denizens of NYC in the 1840s. Which could have been interesting, but there was no real narrative tension. The book was ok, but didn't really seem to drive forward or have much of a purpose. The murder mentioned in the title is simply used as a device to dra...

A few years back I read “The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder” by Daniel Stashower. It was a nonfiction account of a brutal murder that took the New York press by storm. Edgar Allan Poe used it as a template for a follow up to his “Murders in the Rue Morgue” with it transplanted to Paris in his “The Mystery of Marie Roget.” Her body found in the Seine rather than the Hudson. Since it never was truly solved I figured a fictional account, which “The B...

This book started out strong, but then dissolved into a mess of fiction pawned off as fact. If you're going to write an historical novel based on a factual event in a previous time period with actual historical figures, please, please, at least stick to the basic facts of the event. Why say the Colt revolver began use in the NYPD in the 1840's when it was actually the 1880's. It would have been a great book had it been a total work of fiction.

This is a take on the 1841 murder of Mary Rodgers, the cigar girl, which is one of the most celebrated murders in US history. The novel centers on Old Hayes, NYC's High Constable, who is in charge of the case, and his speculation as to the possible involvement of Edgar Allan Poe; the Colt family - of which Samuel Colt of firearms fame was the head - also makes an appearance. The book was pretty slow moving, but in this case, that really worked, since the case itself was slow moving, as was much

Based on a true NY city murder from the mid-1800's, the story looks at the actual events and people that lived at that time, including Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Cecilia Rogers, and gun-maker John C. Colt's murder of Samuel Adams. The story weaves in different theories of the murders, including the cooping theory of Poe's own death. Some believe that Poe fell victim to a practice known as cooping, a method of voter fraud practiced by gangs in the 19th century where an unsuspecting victim would be ki...

I read this a few years ago, and although I don't remember too much of the details, I do recall thinking it was outstanding. Great flavor for the era, just a great weaving of a story.

Kind of skipped the middle.....history + fiction often doesn't work for me.

This novel suffered from too much action, rather than too little. There were simply too many subplots circling one another to make for a coherent novel. Starting in 1841 the plot begins with seemingly unrelated murders - of young 'segar girl' Mary Rodgers, Samuel Adams, and a Hot Corn Girl, happen within weeks of each other. High Constable of New York, Jacob Hays, is trying to close all three cases. He apprehends the accused culprits of the latter two, but Mary Rodgers murderer eludes him. Enter...

I don't think I can remember dragging out my reading of a single book so long... ever. I have been working on trudging through this dismal mess of a book for three or four months now. I would pick it up every other day, read a chapter or so, and put it down.I have read boring books before, and normally, I am still able to get through them well enough. I'm not entirely sure what it was about this one, but it inspired in me a desire NOT to read - a very unfortunate quality to possess when you are

This is one of those strange so-called "historical" novels that, in truth, has very little actual history. Most of the lead characters are completely fictitious, and the rest consist of equally fictitious characters who simply have the names of real people (such as Poe) tacked on to make the book more commercial.I found the "Poe" character particularly irritating, as virtually nothing he does in this book (particularly his "affairs" with Mary Rogers and Fanny Osgood) bears the slightest resembla...

The premise here is a fascinating one: Edgar Allan Poe is littering his works with clues to the apparent murder of a local New York girl named Mary Rogers. High Constable John Hay, now in his 70s and considering leaving the job, is overseeing the case ... which drags on over several years.Unfortunately, the text also seems to drag on far too many occasions. We are shown a great deal of the life of both New York's upper crust and its low class crime gangs. We are shown the bizarre relationship be...

THE BLACKEST BIRD: A NOVEL OF HISTORY AND MURDER.Joel Rose is not the first novelist to be seduced by the story of the murder Mary Rogers in 1841, the famous "beautiful cigar girl" from Anderson's Liberty Street tobacco Shop. Half of the men of the city of New York, it seems, were in love with her. Including the founder of the murder mystery genre, Edgar Allan Poe who followed "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" with his own investigation into the murder of Rogers in "The Mystery of Marie Roget."In

The story of the attempt of the presiding High Constable of New York to solve the murder of Mary Rogers, upon which Edgar Allan Poe's "The Mystery of Marie Roget" is based. Poe himself is interweaved throughout the story, as are other notable historical figures, and the author uses phrases from Poe's works throughout the text. A bit slow and plodding at times, but the writing is quite good, and the story also posits a theory as to what may have happened to Poe during the days of his mysterious d...

In The Blackest Bird, Rose somewhat cleverly intertwines three separate historical crimes, seemingly unconnected, and weaves them into a complete narrative of seduction, ambition, and betrayal. The "main" character, the historical High Constable Hays, is a smart man in his investigation of the murders in connection (and sometimes collaboration) with poet and author Edgar Allen Poe. However, with Hays, Poe, and the whole cast of characters in general, I found the development of them personally to...

The biggest mystery is how such a potentially interesting story/setting could be made so mind numbingly boring.....

This was like the world's longest Wikipedia entry.

Very interesting historical fiction about Edgar Allan Poe and all of his relationships and maladies. I enjoyed this book immensely, but now I am afraid that I will take what I've read here and my brain will take it as fact, regurgiatitng to people who are looking at me, like huh? That's not what really happened to Edgar Allan Poe. Haha. What do you do? Maybe I'll have to read something factual and set myself straight.

As a detective story , this novel is convoluted, distracted and confusing. The author tries too hard to link three murders/murderers, and the kindly older detective ( a fine character despite the muddled story) never seems to get anywhere. As a fantastical vignette of mid-19th century New York City, it is more successful - think Gangs of New York mixed with with appearances by the literatti of the day. The completely violent street fights between the native-born thugs are mirrored in more gentee...

Real tough to get into, almost painful at times. The only positive that I can pull away, I’m intrigued to read some Poe now.