The Blackest Bird

In the sweltering New York City summer of 1841, the beautiful 'Segar Girl' Mary Rogers is brutally murdered. Popular amongst the fledgling city's journalistic and publishing elite, the task of finding her killer falls to High Constable Jacob Hays, already embroiled in establishing law and order over the ferocious gangs who run rampant through the Five Points. In this climate of suspicion, John Colt, scion of the fireman fortune, beats his publisher to death with a hatchet. Young Irish gang leader Tommy Coleman is accused of killing his daughter, his wife, and his wife's former lover. At the end of a long and distinguished career, and fortified by the support and affection of his daughter Olga, Old Hays's investigation will ultimately span a decade, involving gang wars, grave robbing, and clues hidden in the poems of the hopeless romantic and minstrel of the night, Edgar Allen Poe. The Blackest Bird is both a richly textured and atmospheric portrait of the birth of New York, a city raging with bloodshed and duplicity, and a thrilling murder mystery.