The Blackest Bird

A Novel of Murder in Nineteenth-Century New York

Joel Rose

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN: 9780393344493
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Science Fiction
• Index: Literature

"Irresistibly seductive…a masterpiece." —Anthony Bourdain

In the sweltering New York summer of 1841, five people are found brutally murdered. At the center of it all is High Constable Jacob Hays, the young city's first detective and the novel's "likeable, crusty narrator" ( Time Out New York). His investigation spans years, involving gang wars, graverobbers, and clues hidden in poems by that hopeless romantic and minstrel of the night: Edgar Allan Poe.

The Blackest Bird is a gripping and atmospheric historical thriller of murder and deceit in nineteenth-century New York.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Maps
• Also By
• Title Page
• Epigraph
• Contents
• 1 July 26, 1841, Midnight
• 2 Old Hays
• 3 Murder
• 4 Between Two Tides
• 5 The City Brain
• 6 In the Lair of the Green Turtle
• 7 News of Murder Breaks in the Public Prints
• 8 The Investigation Begins in Earnest
• 9 In a Clearing
• 10 What Colt Did
• 11 Aftermath to Murder
• 12 Death of the Corkcutter Daniel Payne
• One Year Later
• 13 His Is the Rampant Temerity
• 14 Somewhere Deep in the Distance Stereotomy
• 15 The Sunday Sermon
• 16 A Man Condemned
• 17 The Bridge of Sighs
• 18 The Tombs
• 19 The Sister of the Pretty Hot Corn Girl
• 20 The Dark Deeds of Ruby Pearl
• 21 During His Time in the Tombs
• 22 The Ponce
• 23 Armagnac
• 24 Anderson’s Segar Shop
• 25 The Night Soil Cart
• 26 Snowden’s Ladies’ Companion
• 27 Murders in the Rue Morgue
• 28 The Mystery of Marie Rogêt Part One and Part Two but Not Yet Part Three
• 29 A Bitter Reunion
• 30 Marriage Beneath the Gibbet
• 31 The Marriage Banquet
• 32 Preparation for a Hanging
• 33 A Dagger in the Heart
• 34 The Politics of Fire in New York City
• 35 Into the Five Points
• 36 Conjecture on the Death of John C. Colt
• 37 A Poem Before Dying
• 38 Colt’s Patent Chair
• 39 Grave Robbers
• 40 Following Poe
• 41 Ambush Below the Heights
• 42 The Band Undone
• 43 A Visit Paid by Old Hays to the Colonel, Samuel Colt, at His Paterson Arms Manufacturing Company
• 44 The Wake and Funeral of Tommy Coleman
• 45 Aftermath to Obsequies
• 46 Sergeant McArdel
• 47 For His Soul
• A Year and a Half Later
• 48 The Hunt for the Murderer of Mary Rogers Resumes
• 49 George Palmer Putnam
• 50 Stopping in at the Tobacconist’s Shop
• 51 Mary Devereaux
• 52 The New York Sun, the New York Moon, and All the Stars in the New York Sky
• 53 130 Greenwich Street
• 54 What Song the Syrens Sing
• 55 A Carman
• 56 The Brennan Farm
• 57 Mr. Poe, Do You Remember Me?
• 58 Poe, Poe, a Thousand Times Poe
• 59 Poe Makes Overtures to His Doomed Wife
• 60 Beneath a Bust of Pallas
• 61 Murder for Pleasure
• 62 If Not He, Who?
• 63 Grip the Raven and We’ll All Have Tea
• 64 The Black Bird
• 65 Miss Lynch’s Conversaziones
• 66 Back in the Lair of the Green Turtle
• Ten Months Later
• 67 My Dreams Are of the Unknown
• 68 Turtle Bay
• 69 The Dead Are but for the Moment...Motionless
• 70 The Bells
• 71 And the Fever Called Living Is Conquered at Last
• Afterword
• Author's Note and Acknowledgments
• Copyright