The beginnings of the New York City Police Department in 1845 are at the heart of Lyndsay Faye’s series debut,
The Gods of Gotham.
From her Q & A with Lenny Picker at
Publishers Weekly:
Where did this book come from?
I began with the concept of day one, cop one—the very first New York City police officer on his first day on the job. I knew nothing about the topic, and thus rolled up my sleeves and spent six months buried in the depths of the New York Public Library’s research library and the New York Historical Society. Much of the plot came directly from my research: the fire that decimated lower Manhattan, the formation of the police, the flood of Irish immigration due to the concurrent Potato Famine. Once I learned about all the incredible events that took place in 1845 New York, I had an enormous amount of historical drama to cull from.
What led to the formation of the NYPD at exactly that time?
New York City, which already had a population of 400,000, was growing exponentially during this period. But its system of peacekeeping was a joke. The night watch consisted of hard-working men with full-time day jobs who...[read on]
Learn more about the author and her novel at
Lyndsay Faye's website.
See
the crime novel Faye would most like to have written.
Writers Read: Lyndsay Faye (May 2009).
Writers Read: Lyndsay Faye (April 2012).
The Page 69 Test: The Gods of Gotham.
--Marshal Zeringue