Mary Rogers (the Beautiful Cigar Girl of the title) worked at John Anderson’s Tobacco Emporium in 19th century Manhattan. She was quite famous at the time as well as the main attraction at the store. Mary went out one day and never came home -- as her family began to become distraught at her disappearance, her body was found floating in the Hudson. Newspapers of the time had a field day with the story -- each newspaper (in an era of fierce competition among journals) had its own information, its own take on the case, and fired up the imaginations of readers. This is one story in this book, which intertwines and ultimately meshes with the story of Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe is portrayed within these pages as a somewhat eccentric, bent-on-self-destruction individual. His great detective, Auguste Dupin, also captured the imaginations of readers with the case of Marie Roget, first serialized in a lady's magazine. Poe ultimately used all of the sources at hand regarding the Mary Rogers murder to put together his own fictional account, hoping to make a name for himself -- developing the elements of detective fiction in the process that would later be used by other authors, none the least of which was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The book is divided between Mary's story and that of Poe, and I think this structure works very well here.

But really what captured my interest here was neither Poe nor Rogers (though both had somewhat tragic lives) but the focus on the newspaper industry of the time. The New York newspapers reported constantly on the ineptitude of the existing police system & had enough influence to actually change the system. Unlike today, where the reporters were responsible for checking facts & sources (although, as we know, that doesn't always work), back then even a small rumor could end up on the front page as gospel fact to the journal's readers. Cases were often tried in the press; police were chastised for their lack of ability to get a handle on the crime of the day in ever-growing NYC.

All of these elements, plus a really good luck at NY culture of the time is what you're going to find here. I happen to be a fan of Daniel Stashower's writing and he didn't let me down with this book.

An interesting book; I can definitely recommend it to people interested in the history of New York, the history of journalism, Edgar Allan Poe, and unsolved murder cases. Beware -- there are no footnotes to note sources.