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 Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most feared and hated literary critics of the time and himself implicated in Mary's murder. He is struggling to make a living by his poetry to support his dying wife and mother-in-law as well as trying to manage his own mental demons. Hays has found a connection between the tortured author and Mary Rodgers but cannot link him convincingly to the murder, despite accusations from the sensational scandal grubbing press and even the Mayor of New York himself. In the meantime, John Colt, murderer of Samuel Adams and Tommy Coleman, accused of murdering his wife (the Hot Corn Girl), his daughter and another rival gang member, escape from justice through a highly suspicious fire in the Tombs prison. Who caused it and why further muddies the High Constable's investigation into the Rodgers' murder.The plots twists and turns are eventually all knit neatly together, almost too neatly. Far from making this book an exciting page-turner, all the loose ends made this book a chore to read. Too bad really, because the author went to such trouble with the historical details. It might have been more effective if it had been shorter and the plot a lot tighter.
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 resemblance to his actual life and character. Even worse, like so many other novelists who exploit Poe as a character, Rose turned the poor man into a corrupt sleazebag. In respect to Poe's first and most mendacious biographer, Rufus Griswold, Baudelaire once asked if America did not have any laws to keep curs out of cemeteries. One could ask the same about novelists.On top of everything else, the novel is a mess. Dull, rambling, and (considering the ending is extremely stupid and has nothing to do with actual history, either,) a complete waste of time if you love either history or a good fictional mystery.
Do You like book The Blackest Bird (2007)?
I wish this had gone on to my abandoned shelf but my desire to know how the author would wrap up the mystery outweighed my urge to give up on the book. Here are my problems: 1. he made up a lot of stuff as he admits in his note at the end, 2. he assumes you have prior knowledge of Edgar Allan Poe (which thankfully I did thanks to a college class I took my senior year) and 3. he switched tense to the point that it just led me to believe he's a historian first and author second. I wish I hadn't read this. The synopsis was way more interesting than the book lived up to being.The two stars is only because I enjoyed the parts about the newspaper business.
—Jenny
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 draw certain characters together, and the author abandons the search for the murderer for lengthy stretches. It's hard to even explain what this book is about in a short couple of sentences. In a nutshell, skip it.
—Eric
I'm still waiting for an historical fiction concerning Poe that meets my expectations. This definitely came closer than 'The Poe Shadow' but still fell short in my eyes. Covering the murder of Mary Rogers (insipiration for the Marie Roget ratiocination story by Poe) and Homicide Colt's deed. It takes place in Tammany Hall-contolled New York and is mainly from the perspective of an old detective who supposedly the model for C. Auguste Dupin. The writing flowed easily enough, but didn't really grab me, certainly not a page turner and not a flattering profile of E.A. Poe in any way.
—Americanogig
