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1845. New York City forms its first police force. The great potato famine hits Ireland. These two seemingly disparate events will change New York City. Forever.
Timothy Wilde tends bar near the Exchange, saving every dollar and shilling in hopes of winning the girl of his dreams. But when his dreams literally incinerate in a fire devastating downtown Manhattan, he finds himself disfigured, unemployed, and homeless. His older brother obtains Timothy a job in the newly minted NYPD, but he is highly skeptical of this untested "police force." And he is less than thrilled that his new beat is the notoriously down-and-out Sixth Ward-at the border of Five Points, the world's most notorious slum.
One night while returning from his rounds, heartsick and defeated, Timothy runs into a little slip of a girl—a girl not more than ten years old—dashing through the dark in her nightshift . . . covered head to toe in blood.
Timothy knows he should take the girl to the House of Refuge, yet he can't bring himself to abandon her. Instead, he takes her home, where she spins wild stories, claiming that dozens of bodies are buried in the forest north of 23rd Street. Timothy isn't sure whether to believe her or not, but, as the truth unfolds, the reluctant copper star finds himself engaged in a battle for justice that nearly costs him his brother, his romantic obsession, and his own life.
PROLOGUE
When I set down the initial report, sitting at my desk at the Tombs, I wrote:
On the night of August 21, 1845, one of the children escaped.
Of all the sordid trials a New York City policeman faces every day, you wouldn't expect the one I loathe most to be paperwork. But it is. I get snakes down my spine just thinking about case files.
Police reports are meant to read "X killed Y by means of Z." But facts without motives, without the story, are just road signs with all the letters worn off . Meaningless as blank tombstones. And I can't bear reducing lives to the lowest of their statistics. Case notes give me the same parched-headed feeling I get after a night of badly made New England rum. There's no room in the dry march of data to tell why people did bestial things—love or loathing, defense or greed. Or God, in this particular case, though I don't suppose God was much pleased by it.
If He was watching. I was watching, and it didn't please me any too keenly.
For instance, look what happens when I try to write an event from my childhood the way I'm required to write police reports: In October 1826, in the hamlet of Greenwich Village, a fire broke out in a stable flush adjacent to the home of Timothy Wilde, his elder brother, Valentine Wilde, and his parents, Henry and Sarah; though the blaze started small, both of the adults were killed when the con flagration spread to the main house by means of a kerosene explosion.
I'm Timothy Wilde, and I'll say right off , that tells you nothing. Nix. I've drawn pictures with charcoal all my life to busy my fingers, loosen the feeling of taut cord wrapped round my chest. A single sheet of butcher paper showing a gutted cottage with its blackened bones sticking out would tell you more than that sentence does.
But I'm getting better used to documenting crimes now that I wear the badge of a star police. And there are so many casualties in our local wars over God. I grant there must have been a time long ago when to call yourself a Catholic meant your bootprint was stamped on Protestant necks, but the passage of hundreds of years and a wide, wide ocean ought to have drowned that grudge between us, if anything could. Instead here I sit, penning a bloodbath. All those children, and not only the children, but grown Irish and Americans and anyone ill-starred enough to be caught in the middle, and I only hope that writing it might go a way toward being a fit memorial. When I've spent enough ink, the sharp scratch of the specifics in my head will dull a little, I'm hoping. I'd assumed that the dry wooden smell of October, the shrewd way the wind twines into my the gods of gotham coat sleeves now, would have begun erasing the nightmare of August by this time.
I was wrong. But I've been wrong about worse.
Here's how it began, now that I know the girl in question better and can write as a man instead of a copper star:
On the night of August 21, 1845, one of the children escaped. The little girl was aged ten, sixty-two pounds, dressed in a delicate white shift with a single row of lace along the wide, finely stitched collar. Her dark auburn curls were pulled into a loose knot at the top of her head. The breeze through the open casement felt hot where her nightdress slipped from one shoulder and her bare feet touched the hardwood. She suddenly wondered if there could be a spyhole in her bedroom wall. None of the boys or girls had ever yet found one, but it was the sort of thing they would do. And that night, every pocket of air seemed breath on flesh, slowing her movements to sluggish, watery starts.
She exited through the window of her room by tying three stolen ladies' stockings together and fixing the end to the lowest catch on the iron shutter. Standing up, she pulled her nightgown away from her body. It was wet through to her skin, and the clinging fabric made her flesh crawl. When she'd stepped blindly out the window clutching the hose, the August air bloated and pulsing, she slid down the makeshift rope before dropping to an empty beer barrel.
The child quit Greene Street by way of Prince before facing the wild river of Broadway, dressed for her bedroom and hugging the shadows like a lifeline. Everything blurs on Broadway at ten o'clock at night. She braved a flash torrent of watered silk. Glib-eyed men in double vests of black velvet stampeded into saloons cloaked from floor to ceiling in mirrors. Stevedores, politicians, merchants, a group of newsboys with unlit cigars tucked in their rosy lips. A thousand floating pairs of vigilant eyes. A thousand ways to be caught. And the sun had fallen, so the frail sisterhood haunted every corner: chalk-bosomed whores desperately pale beneath the rouge, their huddles of five and six determined by brothel kinships and by who wore diamonds and who could only aff ord cracked and yellowing paste copies.
The little girl could spot out even the richest and healthiest of the street bats for what they really were. She knew the mabs from the ladies instantly.
When she spied a gap in the buttery hacks and carriages, she darted like a moth out of the shadows. Willing herself invisible, winging across the huge thoroughfare eastward. Her naked feet met the slick, tarry waste that curdled up higher than the cobbles, and she nearly stumbled on a gnawed ear of corn.
Her heart leaped, a single jolt of panic. She'd fall—they'd see her and it would all be over.
Did they kill the other kinchin slow or quick?
But she didn't fall. The carriage lights veering off scores of plateglass windows were behind her, and she was flying again. A few girlish gasps and one yell of alarm marked her trail.
Nobody chased her. But that was nobody's fault, really, not in a city of this size. It was only the callousness of four hundred thousand people, blending into a single blue-black pool of unconcern. Th at's what we copper stars are for, I think . . . to be the few who stop and look.
She said later that she was seeing in badly done paintings— everything crude and two-dimensional, the brick buildings dripping watercolor edges. I've suff ered that state myself, the not-being-there.
She recollects a rat gnawing at a piece of oxtail on the pavement, then nothing. Stars in a midsummer sky. The light clatter of the New York and Harlem train whirring by on iron railway tracks, the coats of its two overheated horses wet and oily in the gaslight. A passenger in a stovepipe hat staring back blankly the way they'd come, trailing his watch over the window ledge with his fingertips. The door open the gods of gotham on a sawdusty slaughter shop, as they're called, half-finished cabinetry and dismembered chairs pouring into the street, as scattered as her thoughts.
Then another length of clotted silence, seeing nothing. She reluctantly pulled the stiff ening cloth away from her skin once more. The girl veered onto Walker Street, passing a group of dandies with curled and gleaming soaplocks framing their monocles, fresh and vigorous after a session with the marble baths of Stoppani's. They thought little enough of her, though, because of course she was running hell for leather into the cesspit of the Sixth Ward, and so naturally she must have belonged there.
She looked Irish, after all. She was Irish. What sane man would worry over an Irish girl flying home?
Well, I would.
I lend considerably more of my brain to vagrant children. I'm much closer to the question. First, I've been one, or near enough to it. Second, star police are meant to capture the bony, grime-cheeked kinchin when we can. Corral them like cattle, then pack them in a locked wagon rumbling up Broadway to the House of Refuge. The urchins are lower in our society than the Jersey cows, though, and herding is easier on livestock than on stray humans. Children stare back with something too hot to be malice, something helpless yet fiery when police corner them . . . something I recognize. And so I will never, not under any circumstances, never will I do such a thing. Not if my job depended on it. Not if my life did. Not if my brother's life did.
I wasn't musing over stray kids the night of August twenty-first, though. I was crossing Elizabeth Street, posture about as stalwart as a bag of sand. Half an hour before, I'd taken my copper star off in disgust and thrown it against a wall. By that point, however, it was shoved in my pocket, digging painfully into my fingers along with my house key, and I was cursing my brother's name in a soothing inner prayer. Feeling angry is far and away easier for me than feeling lost.
God damn Valentine Wilde, I was repeating, and God damn every bright idea in his goddamned head.
Then the girl slammed into me unseeing, aimless as a torn piece of paper on the wind.
I caught her by the arms. Her dry, flitting eyes shone out pale grey even in the smoke-sullied moonlight, like shards of a gargoyle's wing knocked from a church tower. She had an unforgettable face, square as a picture frame, with somber swollen lips and a perfect snub nose. There was a splash of faint freckles across the tops of her shoulders, and she lacked height for a ten-year-old, though she carried herself so fluid that she can seem taller in memory than in person.
But the only thing I noticed clearly when she stumbled to a halt against my legs as I stood in front of my house that night was how very thoroughly she was covered in blood.
The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye's is newly released novel today. And it's definitely one you want to get your hands on!
"On the night of August 21, 1845, one of the children escaped."
I was captured from that opening line - hook line and sinker. History and mystery combined is a sure bet for me and Faye did not disappoint.
1845 is a turning point in the history of New York City. Thousands of immigrants fleeing from the potato famine in Ireland settle in the city and the first formal police force is formed. That line? It's from a report written by 'copper star' Timothy Wilde, a policeman in the Sixth Ward - home to the notorious Five Points and more.
Wilde has been hired on based on the recommendation of his bigger than life brother, Valentine. And also on his knowledge of 'flash'.
" Flash, or flash-patter, is the curious dialect spoken by foisters, panel thieves, bruisers, dice burners, confidence men, street rats, news hawkers, addicts, and Valentine.....It's not a language, exactly - it's more like a code."
Faye provides us with a mini lexicon in the beginning of the book, based on George Washington Matsell's actual book from 1859. (Take the Penguin 'Flash" quiz here.)Matsell is also a character in the book. I loved the amount of history and detail that Lyndsay Faye has woven into her book. It brought the time period to life - the political machinations, the religious unrest, the racial prejudice and the social fabric of the time provided a engrossing backdrop for a delicious plot.
Faye's prose paint vivid pictures: (It's a long passage but especially good!)
"If there's a wider street on earth than Broadway, a street more roiling, a street with a more dizzying pendulum swing between starving opium fiends with the rags rotting off of them and ladies in walking gowns bedecked like small steamships, I can't imagine it nor do I want to. Colored footmen sitting atop phaetons and wearing summer straw hats and pale green linen coats whirred past me that morning, one nearly colliding with a Jewess selling ribbons from a wide hinged box hung around her neck. Ice delivery men from the Knickerbocker Company, shoulders knotted with painful-seeming muscles, strained with iron tongs to hoist frozen blocks onto carts and then wheeled their cargo into the opulent hotels before the guests awoke. And weaving in and out, mud-crusted and randy and miraculously nimble, trotted the speckled pigs, rubbery snouts nuzzling the trampled beet leaves. Everything begrimed but the storefront window panes, everything for sale but the cobblestones, everyone pulsing with energy but never meeting your eye"
But what really grabbed me were the characters. Timothy's life changes radically over the course of the book. From a bartender saving his coins, dreaming of marriage and a small piece of land to being consumed with solving the child murder cases that have fallen in his lap - and finding out he's very good at it.
"I wanted to know how they came to be there like very little else I've ever wanted, and I'd never felt so about a puzzle before....this was a single goal, a mountain to climb and see the top with your own eyes, and I needed to know."
The relationship between Timothy and his brother Valentine is a mystery to be solved as well. I loved the cast of eclectic supporting characters - especially Mr. Piest and George Matsell.
Lyndsay Faye has combined a great mystery with a fascinating look at history and engaging characters, all of which kept me up late, rapidly turning 'just one more page'. I truly hope that that Faye has plans to continue on with these characters.
**Just found in an interview with Kirkus reviews...."The first draft of the sequel is finished, actually. It’s the winter of 1846, about six months later, and in it I merrily continue to do terrible, terrible things to Tim and Val."
Fans of Caleb Carr's The Alienist would enjoy this book. And author Michael Connelly says "A wonderful book. Lyndsay Faye's command of historical detail is remarkable and her knowledge of hum"A wonderful book. Lyndsay Faye's command of historical detail is remarkable and her knowledge of human character even more so. I bought into this world in the opening pages and never once had the desire to leave. It's a great read." Five stars for me!
12 out of 13 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Left my living room eagerly by the second paragraph and returned from 1845 New York City begrudgingly every hundred pages or so. Unseasonably warm, gorgeous spring weather did not entice me to leave this story unread. Perfect balance of real characters, unexpected plotting and masterful command and pacing of prose place this book at the top of my recommend list.
8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Expertly written and devilishly engrossing. I could not have asked for a better novel. The characters are believeable, loveable and dramatically human. They make mistakes and they grow. They learn and they love. This is a perfect piece of historical fiction that makes the reader feel as if they are actually in New York in 1845. Lyndsay Faye is an excellent writer and it is so refreshing to read something with that much depth.
You can read the books overview above, so I won't go into detail about that. But I will tell you that it has been a while since I have read a book that captured and captivated me since page one. You won't be disappointed.
7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.If you were a fan of TV's NYPD Blue, and you like historical fiction then Lyndsay Faye's novel The Gods of Gotham is for you. Set in 1845, it tells the story of the origins of the NYPD through the story of Timothy Wilde. (If Andy Sipowicz were around in 1845, he'd fit right in.)
Tim is genial bartender who knows everyone in the neighborhood. He is seriously injured in a fire, and after recuperating, his brother Val gets him a job in the newly formed New York Police Department, called "the copper stars" after the copper badges they carry. Hence, the slang "copper" for police.
Tim is none too pleased with his job. Cops are looked upon with suspicion by the general public, and he is assigned to the worse section of the city, the slums in Five Points. Not to mention that he is in great pain from his burns.
One night he runs into a small girl covered in blood. She is too traumatized to tell him what happened, so he takes her to his apartment where his landlady helps to care for the girl. She tells Tim that there are several bodies of young children buried in the woods; a serial killer is on the loose.
The Gods of Gotham drops the reader right smack into the middle of 1845 New York City, with interesting characters trying to solve a crackling good murder mystery. We meet a doctor who uses early forensic methods to determine how and who killed these children, a priest whose church is the site of a horrible murder and a young female charity worker named Mercy who is a romantic interest for Tim.
The writing evokes sensory reactions in the reader. We can smell the rot of the slums and feel the shame of the daily taunts and slights that the Irish immigrants are subjected to as they try to assimilate and make lives for themselves and their families.
The Irish became 'coppers' because it was not thought to be a respectable job, and therefore no decent man would want to do it. Through the NYPD, the Irish gained a foothold politically, and the corruption that follows is a theme in this fascinating novel.
I liked the character development; Tim and his brother Val's relationship is particularly well done. The plot is well-paced and although I do not like blood and gore, what is here is essential to the story and not overdone. One particularly memorable scene involves a mother and her baby that is so very sad, it made my heart ache.
The attention to historical detail is impeccable. I could study the map of 1845 New York City on the inside cover for hours, and the quotes at the beginning of each chapter are interesting as well.
Fans of historical literary murder mysteries, like Caleb Carr's The Alienist, will love The Gods of Gotham. I'm not the only one who feels this way; Faye was nominated for a 2012 Edgar Award for this enthralling mystery. And I was not surprised to find that this book was originally published by Amy Einhorn; she always finds the good ones.
3 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sat May 05 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Author is to be commended for her research into life in New York during the 1840s. However, it seemed like I was just reading a book on American History. The plot was weak and there was little incentive to Get back to it. I learned a lot about my ancestors but was not too entertained in a literary fashion.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Tue Apr 03 00:00:00 EDT 2012
What can I say....Loved It!
3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Tue Jul 10 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Loved it! Such a great story, with wonderful characters. If you liked Devil in the White City, you'll like this. Faye describes everything in such a magical way, you will not be disappointed. I highly recommend it.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Thu Apr 12 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Excellent story telling. It was very exciting to follow along with the birth of not only a New York Police force but also the development of a Sherlock Holmes type of Detective. Timothy Wilde proves to be a quick study of detective by observation and guile to solve what appears to be several murders. Without DNA, fingerprints or any other "forensic" type assistance he pursues the case to its conclusion. He experiences many heartfelt emotions both uplifting and throughly depressing. However, he does overcome it all to successfully solve the mystery. The style of writing flows smoothly thru a New York City that is in the becoming of a major metropolis in the new America. The problems of the melting pot country are used as a backdrop for this fascinating story. We see the conflicts of a changing map of the City, politically, culturally, and religiously. All in all I can't wait to see if Timothy returns for more mystery and adventure. And I would like to know how Bird and Mercy make out in their new pursuits.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Thu Mar 28 00:00:00 EDT 2013
An interesting story but the plotline and characters are too dark and disturbing to make it an enjoyable read. While the author is to be commended for his research, it's a case of TMI on every page. The heavy detail bogs down the story.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sun Feb 24 00:00:00 EST 2013
I loved this story. If you enjoyed Caleb Carr's The Alienist then you'll love this book. I hope this isn't the last we see of these characters.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Thu Mar 28 00:00:00 EDT 2013
Sits
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sat Nov 03 00:00:00 EDT 2012
hello my peeps may i observe u for a while? Im on a mission secret mission.†††
0 out of 13 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sat Sep 08 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Yawns and looks at his sword Caliburn. Caliburn:hmmm i suppose something must be done bout this..." jon:what mean.? Caliburn:"my edge has gone... blunt jon:ha not exactly he sharpest tool in the deck
0 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Sat Sep 08 00:00:00 EDT 2012
*eats a dragon*
0 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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Posted Fri Jul 13 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Kk
0 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I LOVED this book! I can't really add anything more to the Overview above. Be sure to check that out! I read THE GODS OF GOTHAM the week it was published. (I had just finished Faye's first novel, DUST AND SHADOW, a "newly discovered" Sherlock Holmes story -- which I give a 5 star rating to as well -- so I quickly recognized Faye's name.) I raved about both books to my friends, and I predicted to them that THE GODS OF GOTHAM will win book awards this year! It's that good on many levels! So I'm wishing that the Barnes and Noble stores will do a little more to "push" awareness of this book. I'd love to see a stack featured on an individual table! Perhaps put both of her books on a small feature table. They are that good! Lyndsay Faye is a superb writer who, I'm sure, will eventually be recognized as a major "new" talent. Let's make her famous now! I understand that THE GODS OF GOTHAM will be the first book in a series that will continue the story of Timothy, his brother, and the beginnings of the NYPD. I'm hooked and eagerly await her next book.
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Posted Wed May 23 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Loved it! Well written, interesting characters and a plot that moves right along. The depiction of early NYC and the formation of the police department was very colorful and very interesting. The plot had some interesting twists and turns and I look forward to another book by the this other with these characters. I'm told the movie Gangs of New York covers similar ground. This book arouses my interestest in the given period and locale. I only give 5 stars for a book that is destined to be a classic, even if only in my opinion, and one I may reread down the road.
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Posted Sat May 12 00:00:00 EDT 2012
Wonderfully written historical novel with real, well rounded, absorbing , flawed characters. Read in two nights and certainly hope to read more about Timothy in future novels. A must buy. Enjoy.
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Posted Mon Jun 11 00:00:00 EDT 2012
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Posted Thu Apr 05 00:00:00 EDT 2012
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Overview
1845. New York City forms its first police force. The great potato famine hits Ireland. These two seemingly disparate events will change New York City. Forever.
Timothy Wilde tends bar near the Exchange, saving every dollar and shilling in hopes of winning the girl of his dreams. But when his dreams literally incinerate in a fire devastating downtown Manhattan, he finds himself disfigured, unemployed, and homeless. His older brother obtains Timothy a job in the newly minted ...