The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye is an interesting read.

"After a fire disseminates a swathe of lower Manhattan, and following years of passionate political dispute, New York City at long last forms an official Police Department. The same summer the great potato famine hits Ireland. These events will change the city of New York forever.

Lyndsay Faye does an amazing job of bringing to life the sense of time and place of 1845 New York City. You certainly get a feel for this city and its people.
She has also clearly undertaken meticulous historical research and creates a convincing insight into New York's criminal underworld for the time.

I am afraid I did not gel with any of the characters in this novel, and while I thought the book started off strong and quite a page turner, I found it dragged quite a lot towards the middle and found myself plodding towards the end.

I am not a big fan of mysteries but I did enjoy the historically elements of this novel.

A well written novel and will look forward to more books from this author. ( )

This was a real good read. If you want to know about 19th century New York and the start of the police force in New York be sure to read this. ( )

Very well written. Fleshed out characters and well thought out plot with nice historical details. *****
Spoiler alert****** I was a bit upset that she decided to have her admirable leading female character prostitute herself. Maybe it is some sort of feminist twist that in a repressive society, where you can’t control anything, selling your body is some sort of admirable act of defiance, but I don’t buy it ( )

A well written historical mystery. Clever plot twists at the end. Characters that were engaging. Yet... The writing wasn't jiving with me. It was good, and I could see many really enjoying her descriptive use of language, but it just didn't wring a perfect tone with me. Still... I will probably read the next in the series. Very good. ( )

More like a 3.5 stars. I absolutely loved the setting and the characters. The book started off really strong but then towards the middle started to drag for me. I actually put it aside for a bit and then came back to it. It was strong enough for a first book that I will read the next one. ( )

New York rond 1845 herleeft in dit boek. Erg spannend boek, waar een moedige hoofdpersoon een seriemoordenaar probeert te vinden, temidden van de onverschilligheid van zijn stadsgenoten tegenover vreemdelingen en kinderen. Het had in het echt ook kunnen gebeuren.... ( )

A detective story set in 1845. The extensive backstory tells of the Irish potato famine and the coincidence of its timing with the formation of the NYPD and the rise of the Irish in NYC. Excellently researched and written in period language. ( )

If you like Caleb Carr's The Alienist, you'll want to check out Lyndsay Faye's Timothy Wilde series. I already think that she writes some of the best Sherlock Holmes spinoffs out there. ( )

Excellent. I highly recommend it. ( )

A murder mystery set in 1840s New York City, this is something of a cross between Caleb Carr's The Alienist in subject and Dennis Lehane's The Given Day in writing style. Its similarity the Lehane book put me off at first, partly because Faye had the exact same tendency that Lehane did to tell the reader how to feel about everything that was put in front of them. One of my least favorite writer's tics is when they decide that some object just has to serve as a convenient metaphor, and then nothing will stop them from spending a paragraph or a page pointlessly explaining that metaphor to the reader. So be on the lookout for things with dangerously suggestive "literary" qualities like sunsets, the main character's police badge, and the like, because you'll get a train of sentences following afterwards that tells you exactly what you're supposed to be feeling. There are also some eyebrow-raising points of characterization: the protagonist, a supposedly street-wise bartender by trade who was cruelly orphaned at a young age, is also somehow an accomplished charcoal sketch artist; additionally, the fact that he can speak the "flash" street lingo of the time gets relayed in a way straight out of the "Oh stewardess, I speak jive!" scene in Airplane!. However, those are minor complaints, and Faye overall does a really good job of portraying New York City as it was during those times. The main plot, which revolves around the murder of child prostitutes, gets tied into a lot of the political ferment of the times (nativists vs. Irish FOBs, Democrats vs. Whigs, party bosses vs. reformers, and the city's struggle to give itself a real police force as opposed to the mobs of hired gangs it had been using), in a way that's usually very informative without seeming overly didactic. No awkward info-dumps here! There's even a decent love story in there too. I confess that it didn't strike an extremely deep chord with me based on some of the stylistic tics, but overall it was well-written and should appeal to historical fiction fans. ( )

In 1840s New York City, Timothy Wilde's life is marked by tragedy, and it's about to get even more dangerous and complicated as he endeavors to solve a mystery and save children's lives. I'm not great at gauging what bits are spoilers, so I'll just say that I really enjoyed this one. There's one big red herring and some of the attitudes seem anachronistic, but the dialogue and dialect are skillfully done and the story compelling.

While I was aware of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish bias and violence in the US, the extent of it as evidenced by the excerpts from historical writings at the head of each chapter was a surprise to me. It's valuable to remember that the US has always had difficulty defining exactly who "us" is and that the divisiveness of today, while disheartening, is nothing new, and we need always to be on guard against the less noble parts of our own human nature. ( )

Aborted. Couldn´t get past the 30% point. ( )

This is quite a book. The setting, New York in the mid 1800s, is presented brilliantly. The story is very gritty and raw. Even though it made reading more work, I really liked the way the author made the characters vand dialog very authentic. ( )

LOVED this two book series! Can't wait to see what Lindsay Faye comes up with next. ( )

Orphaned when his parents died in a fire, Timothy Wilde watches his own life savings melt away when a devastating fire destroys the area where he worked as a bartender and lived. His brother Val, a New York City fireman, secures both of them posts on the newly formed New York Police Department. Val is a captain, but Timothy is simply a roundsman. He had hoped to ask Mercy Underhill, a minister's daughter, for her hand in marriage. He moves to his ward, finding lodging above Mrs. Boehme's bakery. When a young blood-covered girl turns up at his doorsteps, the corpse of a boy named Liam is found soon afterwards, leading him to Silkie Marsh's establishment which exploits young Irish children. While the job of the police is primarily prevention of crime, Timothy finds himself investigating this one with the support of the city's first police commissioner. Mercy Underhill continues her mother's efforts at charitable work, in spite of her father's protests. He is intolerant of Catholics, and the poor Irish with whom she works are Catholic. The plot is very well-developed with several woven threads that make for a captivating read or listen. Boyer did a good job narrating the audiobook. I look forward to future installments in this series. My biggest regret is waiting so long to listen to it because I was afraid I might not like it. ( )

If you loved the short lived TV series "Copper" then you'll definitely enjoy this book. ( )

Summary: The first in the author's Timothy Wilde series, in which Wilde, a newly installed New York Policeman in 1845, encounters a blood-covered girl, whose story leads to the discovery of twenty dead children and an assignment to find the killer before anti-Irish rage consumes the city.

Timothy Wilde and his older brother Val were orphaned when their parents died in a fire. The brothers survived by their wits, especially Val's, who nevertheless became a New York City fireman, while dousing his pain in opiates. Timothy struggled with the life Val had chosen, and pursued a different path, tending bar on the lower end of Manhatten.

Until the fire. Until the bar was destroyed, he was burned in an explosion, and rescued by his brother. The fortune he'd accumulated was lost in the fire--a fortune with which he hoped to marry Mercy Underhill, a Protestant minister's daughter who he had admired since childhood for both her looks and her charitable work among New York's poor.

Val, ensconced in politics, gets both himself and Timothy a job on the newly formed New York City Police Department, the "copper stars" or "coppers." Maintaining order in the city has become much more difficult with a mass influx of Irish immigrants driven to seek a new life by the Irish Potato Famine. Timothy is not crazy about the work, particularly after he arrests a poor woman not in her right mind who had killed her infant son and takes her to the Tombs, the New York City jail.

Returning home to his apartment above Mrs. Boehme's bakery one night, a young girl covered in blood collides with him at his door. Gradually, he gets the story out of her, not only of little Liam's gruesome death by the dark hooded man at Silkie Marsh's brothel, but the other children who died similarly and were buried in a mass grave on the north edge of town. Subsequent investigation reveals that the girl, Bird Daly, is telling the truth for once, each child being cut open brutally in the shape of a cross. Chief Matsell tasks Wilde with finding the murderer before the news breaks and anti-Irish sentiment reaches a flash point.

The story takes many twists and turns from there as several letters are received, including one to the New York papers, and one to Dr. Palsgrave, the some-time coroner who determined the cause of the deaths. There is another murder, a child hung on the door of the Catholic Church, seemingly incriminating Fr. Sheehy. Timothy is warned off the investigation, and faces death several times as well as riots as feelings reach a boiling point. His relation with his brother is strained, as he thinks the brother has taken away Bird Daly, or may even be the murderer.

The novel reveals a seamy side of New York involving brothels, child prostitution and Protestant-Catholic hatreds and racial prejudice. We witness a police department that is an organ of party patronage. Yet in the end, Wilde solves the crime with the help of some butcher paper on which he works out all the evidence until he finally realizes where it points. For his troubles, Chief Matsell assigns him to solve crimes rather than prevent them. And so a new series is born!

Much of the dialogue is in "flash," a secret language that derived from the British criminal underground and used among the working classes of the day. Chief Matsell is a historical figure and actually compiled a lexicon of the language, which he is seen doing during the story. The author provides an abbreviated glossary at the beginning with a number of terms.

Tensions between brothers, a possible serial killer of child prostitutes, the grit and bustle of mid-nineteenth century New York, and characters who are not always what they seem all make for a gripping read. I'm glad for the Barnes and Noble bookseller who recommended this book. Don't be surprised if you see subsequent numbers of this series (now up to three) reviewed here. ( )

Find my full review here: https://veereading.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/gods-of-gotham-by-lyndsay-faye

As usual, the author has done a fantastic job in creating a perfect historical setting. With the vocabulary and the cultural depictions, New York City in 1845 really came to life. I loved how there was so much depth with each character; there were good and bad things in all of them, which just made it so much easier to relate to their struggles. I liked the plot and the way the story had side events that occurred while sticking to the main murder mystery. However, I wasn't as pleased with the ending. I felt a tad bit disappointed with the identity of the killer. I was expecting something a bit more ... evil and twisted? Instead, it just came off as sad. While the author ensured that every aspect had been tied in, it just felt a bit of a let-down considering how wound up I was by all of the other intricacies and details. Overall, though, I must say that this novel was definitely a good read and I enjoy reading this author's work. Her grasp of historical facts and her ability to weave them into a story is remarkable and I would recommend this novel to anyone looking for a good historical fiction murder! ( )

Exciting entry into the Timothy Wilde series. NY 1845 shortly after a big fire, which burned down Timothy's home, the New York police was founded. There were still no clear rules and regulations, so this spoiled police corps was rather corrupt and often served more to the party than the citizen. Not so Timothy, who used to work as a bartender. He works with the unorthodox way for the weak. This first part of the trilogy is about child prostitution. Thimothy finds out that a devilish madam forces children to prostitution, and if they are no longer useful, let them kill or die.
It is an exciting story, it shows a lot about NY at that time. ( )

This is the first of three (so far) novels with Timothy Wilde, one of NYC's first "copper stars", as its protagonist. The setting is mid-19th century Manhattan, which makes it irresistible to me. The city has just established its first official police force, which faces a lot of resistance from the rough underworld types as well as more respectable citizens who see it as a "standing army" and do not approve of its existence. Timothy has an analytical mind, but an impulsive nature and a tender heart; he's a grand creation. His boss is the historical personage, George Washington Matsell, who organized this force and eventually became New York's first police commissioner. Matsell also compiled and published [Vocabulum: A Rogue's Lexicon], a dictionary of thieves' slang, which the author uses extensively in this book. The story line concerns murdered "kinchin mabs", or child prostitutes, of both sexes. When a burial ground containing the remains of 19 of these unfortunates is discovered, and anonymous letters accuse the Irish Catholics of atrocities in the practice of their religion, Matsell insists the crime must be solved without triggering riots between Nativists and immigrants. The middle parts dragged a bit, as most of the fledgling detective's (that word is never used) theories turned out to be wrong, but the setting and the characters carried me along anyway. It's a fascinating world and one I intend to revisit. ( )

Who is killing Irish children so gruesomely? Timothy Wilde, an inhabitant of New York City and one-time bartender, suddenly finds himself a police officer. This is not a situation he is happy about and yet it will be up to him to find the answer to this ghastly question. The book takes a historical look at New York when the first police force was begun and when there was a great influx of Irish immigrants due to the Potato Famine (1845). Conflicts and racism are rampant; the poverty staggering. The reader will find many interesting facts about our earliest and largest city along with an intriguing murder mystery plot. I really enjoyed this book.

Holly S. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.

( )

couldn't get into it ( )

A painfully accurate novel about NYC, Manhattan Island, in the mid 1800s. Times were difficult, most inhabitants were poor and their living conditions were bad, indeed. A police force, the copper stars, is being established and threatened by someone stirring up the always lurking conflict between the Bowery Boys and the Papists. Lots of interesting characters with a compelling story line make this a good start to a promising series. ( )

2012, Penguin Audio, Read by Steven Boyer

1845. New York City forms its first police force, and the great potato famine hits Ireland. These two seemingly disparate events will change New York City forever.

Timothy Wilde, a bartender with his sights set firmly on Miss Mercy Underhill, has all of his dreams destroyed in a devastating Manhattan fire. Left homeless, unemployed, and disfigured, he is less than grateful when his older brother, Valentine, with whom he has a fractured relationship, gets him a job on the newly minted NYPD. His beat is the notoriously down-and-out Sixth Ward, the world's most notorious slum. One night while on rounds, Wilde literally runs into a little slip of a girl, not more than ten years old – covered in blood, and running for her life in her nightgown. He can’t bring himself to surrender young Bird to the House of Refuge, so her takes her home. Unsure whether or not to believe Bird’s wild claims that dozens of children’s bodies are buried in the forest north of 23st Street, Timothy will soon find himself engaged in a battle for justice that will nearly cost him his life.

Gods of Gotham is a solid, engaging story with superbly drawn characters. Wilde, of course, as the protagonist is fully fleshed out, but the minor characters appealed to me hugely, too: Bird Daly, Mercy Underhill, Silkie Marsh, and more. I look forward to the next in the trilogy, Seven for a Secret. Recommended! ( )

The year the height of the Potato Famine in Ireland sends many Irish people to New York the city gets it's first police force and one of these men is Timothy Wilde. Scarred by an accident his curiosity forces him to look deeper into things and basically to become the first detective. He's both helped and hindered by his politically savvy brother, Valentine who has also joined the police force.

Unrequited love and a lot of messy politics made this an interesting read. You see a lot of the underbelly of New York and a lot of the racism that was prevalent at the time. I'm looking forward to more of this series. ( )