A review by lawyergobblesbooks
The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower
5.0
The Beautiful Cigar Girl, written by mystery novelist and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle biographer Daniel Stashower, fulfills the need for quality true crime if you're willing to tolerate some biography with your mysterious disappearance. The biography in question follows Edgar Allen Poe during an unsuccessful and drink-sodden period of his life. He bounces from a foster home to a short stint at the University of Virginia to naval service to staff positions at literary magazines, finding security for short periods and then blowing his luck. Eventually, he lands in New York, and around the same time a gal about town, Mary Rogers, disappears. The city is captivated, and so is Poe, who endeavors to investigate the case and spin his theories into detective fiction.
Stashower knows how to keep us turning pages even when we're with Poe, when the story could conceivably drag next to the excitement and suspense of the central mystery. He explores the confluence of Poe and Mary Rogers' disappearance with appropriately placed tangents - on contemporary detective fiction, on the culture and figures of 19th-century New York City and its surrounding riverbanks (the New Jersey side of the Hudson sounded pretty nice back then), and on what exactly a "cigar girl" is. The parallel stories (which remind me of the style of Erik Larson's last two books) weave together beautifully, the humanity of a young genius and the sensationalism of a high-profile disappearance a fortunate confluence and the perfect subject for a book.
http://www.whatbookshouldireadtoday.com/2011/03/every-year-i-throw-fit-because-best.html
Stashower knows how to keep us turning pages even when we're with Poe, when the story could conceivably drag next to the excitement and suspense of the central mystery. He explores the confluence of Poe and Mary Rogers' disappearance with appropriately placed tangents - on contemporary detective fiction, on the culture and figures of 19th-century New York City and its surrounding riverbanks (the New Jersey side of the Hudson sounded pretty nice back then), and on what exactly a "cigar girl" is. The parallel stories (which remind me of the style of Erik Larson's last two books) weave together beautifully, the humanity of a young genius and the sensationalism of a high-profile disappearance a fortunate confluence and the perfect subject for a book.
http://www.whatbookshouldireadtoday.com/2011/03/every-year-i-throw-fit-because-best.html