Noir corbeau

by Joel Rose

1841, le meurtre de Mary Rogers traumatise la société new-yorkaise. Les circonstances de la mort de la jeune femme restent à ce jour mystérieuses. Avec Jacob Hays, le directeur de la police, et Edgar Allan Poe pour guides, l'auteur enquête sur ce fait divers, ses protagonistes et l'impact qu'il a eu dans toutes les strates de la société.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Historical, Crime, Historical Mystery, 19th Century

536 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2007

Reviews

[Jukebook_juliet]

Abgebrochen

[Undine · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Ed Mestre · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 Blackest Bird” is, was a prime venue for a “solution.”

It covers much the same ground & theories (definitely leaning to one in particular) though it seems it left beautiful Mary Rogers pretty much at the wayside, focusing more on a rather pathetic Poe and High Constable Hays efforts at a grand solution linking several mysteries that obsessed him.

I found the ending definitely caught me by surprise, which is nearly always satisfying, but the road there not so much. It was rather bumpy, veering around, subtly shifting writing styles. Sometimes sounding like a NYC tabloid. At times, a 19th century domestic novel. Plus, several scenes that should have been exciting, simply were not. A lot of the street jargon of the 1840s is used without explanation. I’m a fan of Lindsay Faye’s “Gods of Gotham” series, set in the same time period. She conveniently provides a glossary of Flash (what the street slang was called.) Something similar might have helped here. Ironically, with all the murder and mayhem, I enjoyed the interaction of Constable Hayes and his daughter Olga in their home the most. She was an intelligent and witty character that I would love to see starring in a novel of her own. Ultimately, I’m glad I made it to the end (almost didn’t) to enjoy an out of left field solution, raising it up a star.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took a few chapters to get into characters. Very soon I was engrossed. The writer paint’s amazingly vivid scenes of New York. Enter Poe. Things just get better. Page turning brilliance.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 girl, and also weaving in two other murder cases.
Author Joel Rose took nearly 18 years to write it, and it shows, as the book is crammed with research and detailed knowledge. Edgar Allan Poe is a central character - this was an initial attraction for me in picking up the book, but I feel there is too much rehashed biographical info about him, especially towards the end of the novel. For me the sections which aren't about Poe, and in particular the story of fictional gang leader Tommy Coleman, work much better.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Janet · Rating 1 out of 5]

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

[Tisha La Bonnaise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, the Blackest Bird is a dramatization of the murder of a young attractive, flirtatious woman who gained notoriety as a counter girl at a tobacconist’s or cigar store in New York that, factually, took place in 1841 near New York City. I guess there have been several books written about the circumstances because it was widely publicized at the time, and involved prominent historical figures, one of whom was Edgar Allan Poe. He, due his unusual macabre short story pieces that were unlike any other writers’ of the period, gained fame as the first detective mystery writer, pre-dating Conan Doyle’s English Sherlock Holmes by some forty years. I enjoyed the book first, because it was historical and I became immersed in the writer’s re-creation of contemporaneous dialogue and narrative, the descriptions of the fetid, sordid, overcrowded, city, the detail of the characters’ attire, and ethos of the populace at the time. So, I guess for that reason it wasn’t quite an “easy” read. But I wasn’t looking for popular, but historical, fiction.

Two difficulties emerged, though. One is that the investigation to solve the crime took place over many years. Consequently, the mystery’s tension was abated several times along the way. Also, without any endnotes it is impossible to distinguish between the historical facts and the poetic license the author must have used to hold the narrative together. For example, did a runaway hot air balloon become the first transatlantic crossing from Europe to America? I’m not sure. Was there a journey to the moon? That sounds inconceivable, although both were news items written up in penny press newspapers as facts-and later refuted. Sounds like precursors of our own time, in which news publishers sacrifice substantiated truth for sensationalized stories to enhance profits. I, personally, would love to know if the character, the “Green Turtle” is factual, though: she was “a massive woman weighing something in excess of three hundred and fifty pounds, her skin as deeply shaded as the color of a ripe plum, with two five-shot pistols stuck in a wide leather waistband around her ample middle, and pressed against the small of her back, but very nearly concealed by layers of flesh, she carried two bone-handled daggers.” (Is she fact or fiction? Hard to tell.)

Lastly, Edgar Allan Poe was never implicated in the murder of Mary Rogers. He was acquainted with her and she even accompanied him for a short time, but he was married to his thirteen years younger cousin whom he professed to love, and lived with her mother for his entire life. He was questioned many times because, in modern parlance, he probably was a “person of interest,” nothing more. No accusation was made, evidence offered, or interrogation took place. He always denied being with Mary Rogers at the time of her death and emphatically denied he murdered her. Was he truthful? Well, you’re not sure. He did author a story, the Murder of Marie Roget, in France that seemed to suggest he knew quite a bit about the murder. But that is conjecture. He was a proponent of ratiocination, which is the discipline of deduction to solve mysteries. Plus, he was exceptionally widely read so he could draw on others' accounts beyond his own.

I liked the book. I wasn't going to read it at first, but then kept coming back to it, maybe because it sounded authentic, as opposed to stories of our popular culture. It helped me come to grips with our modern chaotic, violent, gluttonous culture.

[Rod Barfield]

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 Rose treatment, Poe is implicated as the murderer by his publisher, Harper, and High Constable Jacob Hays follows Poe as his number one suspect. Prepare to comb the same alleyways, cemeteries, and sewers of mid-19th century New York as evoked in "Gangs of New York" with its Plug Uglies, Dead Rabbits, crooked politicians, disease and poverty.
Readers of Daniel Stashower's "The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe and the Invention of Murder" (2006) will find that "The Blackest Bird" covers much of the same ground. Even so, the book is a lovely mesh of detective story and history.

[tinalouisereadsbooks · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Myra · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 kidnapped, disguised and forced to vote for a specific candidate multiple times under multiple disguised identities. Voter fraud was extremely common in Baltimore around the mid 1800s, and the polling site where Poe was found was a known place that coopers brought their victims. Poe was found delirious on election day.

The story is quite interesting and peaked my curiosity enough to read about the true-life stories of some of these (in)famous people.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 genteel arenas - salons and publishing houses -featuring the never-ending catty rivalry between the various daily newsprints, the publishers and their authors, and Poe ( as poison-pen wielding critic) vs every known author of the day. Poe's unfortunate character runs through 10 years of the narrative, and colours it too darkly. A nice try, but an unsuccessful read.

[Nancy 6+ · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 disappearance that preceded his death. (For another book on this subject, I recommend The Poe Shadow, by Matthew Pearl.)

"In self-absorption the poet thinks everything is known. His eyes aglow, a fire beyond malnutrition burns, madness, imbalance, within." - Joel Rose

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Karen Helgesen Gurnavage · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have to admit I almost gave up on this book, but made it to the end. I enjoyed the interactions between Olga and her father. It was confusing why the author used alternative terms like 'segar' instead of 'cigar'. I tried to do research on this thinking it was a term used during the period of this story, but all references were made to the 'beautiful cigar girl'.

[Betsy Jones · Rating 1 out of 5]

boring

And confusing. I love historical mysteries but this was dull. The story could have ended much sooner. I finished it not to find the killer ( pick them out early very early) just because I am stubborn. Did skimmed thur much of the pages. So disappointed will not pick up a book by this author again.

[sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Mary Ahlgren · Rating 2 out of 5]

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

[Michele Krzewinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!! Loved it! Kept me going to the end!!

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was like the world's longest Wikipedia entry.

[Jordan Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 a book.

"The Blackest Bird" is about a detective in 1840's New York trying to solve the case of Mary Rogers, a young cigar-shop worker known in society for her beauty.
It is also about the creator of the Colt revolver, who isn't finding much sucess yet.
And it is about two men who are hanged for murdering their wives (well, actually not, but a little bit), who both were known through-out the lower circles as beautiful girls who sold corn on the streets.
And then Edgar Allen Poe comes in...
Confused?

This book could not decide what it wanted to be. The plot dashes from plot to plot and fails to mesh them together convincingly.
The murder of Mary Rogers is a case that goes unsolved for decades, so the book frequently tosses that main story into the background, digging it back up at frequent intervals until it is finally solved. I simply couldn't care.

For such an exciting premise, author Joel Rose does a remarkable job of making everything as boring as possible. Grave robbers, midnight escapades with Poe, New York City underworld, murder... Can YOU think of a way to make any of these things tedious and sleep-inducing?
Rose, evidentially, found 480 pages worth.

Great book to put you to sleep, but certainly not recommended for any other use.

[Marty · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 in law enforcement at the time. The book really does a nice job of demonstrating how one might get away with all sorts of things because "the law" is not robust enough to pursue effectively. It also did a nice and accurate job of presenting the role of the press at the time - concerned about circulation, rather than truth, as usual.

I think my favorite aspect of the book was the author's excellent use of contemporary language - both vocabulary and spelling - which clearly demonstrated that he had immersed himself in the source material before writing.

My least favorite part was the very end. I do think the ending fits the tale and the times, but I had come to quite like Old Hays over the years of the story, and I was saddened to see him go in that manner.

The book also made me willing to give Matthew Pearl's "The Poe Shadow" another try. I couldn't get into it before, but I think my mind may be a bit more open to Poe stories at the moment.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 between Poe and his dying wife, Virginia. We are given an idea of the social roles of women.

All of this was interesting enough, and it's apparent that Joel Rose carefully researched his story. Unfortunately, I found the prose a little too turgid; this is the danger of trying to write a period piece in a period style.

The "whodunnit" was revealed in rather a dramatic fashion, and the book is sure to delight Poe fans as a great deal of his dialogue and letters are taken directly from contemporary documents (according to Rose's author note).

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 be lacking. Hays does not have sufficient motive given for his pursuit of these cases that every other authority had given up on, and the effect the solution has on his life isn't profound, making him difficult to root for as a main character. Although the mystery itself, peopled with historical characters galore, is entertaining for the read-through, it lacks the quality of coherence and character development that would grip me far beyond the last page.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Barbara Chambers · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm learning that this is a slow way to reach a conculsion, with many paths that seem to lead no-where, I live in hopes this soon changes and it makes more sense..I have so much more to read and hating the fact that I might stop which for me is a rare occurance..

I'm now on page 135 and really it's not getting any better, I'll give it another day or two and then let it go if it doesn't improve.

I read a good way through but it just and went off at a tangent and jinked about making for very bad reading, then with so many old fashioned words and phrases which didn't improve the book at all I sadly gave up on it, not something I do very often..I understand this book had taken the author 18 years to write which may have been the reason it came out all muddled, this is my opinion only.

[Virginia Weir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ripping adventures with 2000AD's Judge Dredd. A light read, I zipped through this in about 2 hours.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.