The Blackest Bird: A Novel of Murder in Nineteenth-Century New York

Sixty-nine-year-old High Constable Jacob Hays is facing a long, hot summer in 1841. The soaring temperatures are nothing compared to the heat being generated by the sensation-seeking newspapers and the vicious gangs that rule the New York neighborhoods known as the Five Points. When Mary Rogers, a pretty clerk at a tobacco shop, is found brutally murdered in the Hudson River, Hays is charged with the search for her killer. A long-respected lawman known for creating a new interrogation technique called the third degree, Hays is starting to feel the full weight of his position, caught between public outrage and political red tape. High on his list of suspects is the eccentric poet Edgar Allan Poe, who freely admits that he was in love with the "cigar girl." Rose (New York Sawed in Half, 2001) creates a compelling portrait of nineteenth-century New York as well as fascinating, deeply flawed characters. At the center of his novel is the dissolute Poe, dressed in a tattered coat, heavily addicted to opium, and convinced of his own genius. Part history, part mystery, and thoroughly entertaining.--Amazon.