Product Description

New York City, 1896. Hypocrisy in high places is rife, police corruption commonplace, and a brutal killer is terrorizing young male prostitutes. Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt is struggling to make headway against prejudices and determined to improve New York City.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1021972 in Books
• Published on: 1995-10-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 612 pages

Review
New York City 1896: male prostitutes are falling victim to a serial killer. Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt overcomes the doubts and prejudices of the day to enlist the help of Dr Laszlo Kreizler. Kreizler is an alienist - a doctor specializing in the treatment of the mentally ill - who sees a chance to learn more about the criminal mind in his search for the killer. A superb evocation of old New York and an eerily intriguing portrait of a man laying the foundations of a new science make this a remarkable first novel. (Kirkus UK)

Novelist/historian Carr (The Devil's Soldier, 1991, etc.) combines his two preferred modes with a meaty, if overslung, serial-killer quest set in 1896 New York. A series of gruesome murders and mutilations of heartrendingly young prostitutes - boys dressed as girls - reunites three alumni of William James' pioneering Harvard psychology lectures: Times reporter John Schuyler Moore, eminent psychologist Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (called, after the fashion of the time, an "alienist"), and New York Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt. Despite Moore's skepticism about Roosevelt's plan to put Kreizler on the case ("You'd be better off hiring an African witch doctor," he says about his old friend), Kreizler steadily compiles a profile of the killer based on a combination of forensic and psychological evidence. The man they're looking for is over six feet tall; about 30 years old; an expert mountaineer; either a priest or a man from a strongly religious background; a veteran of some time among Indians. As Moore tours Manhattan's nastiest nightspots and Kreizler's net closes around a suspect, Carr fills out his narrative with obligatory cameos by Lincoln Steffens, Jacob Riis, J.P. Morgan, Anthony Comstock, and Franz Boas, and didactic digressions on the rise of Bertillon measurements, fingerprints, the Census Bureau, and gourmet dining (courtesy of Delmonico's) in America. The result is somehow gripping yet lifeless, as evocative period detail jostles with a cast of characters who are, for the most part, as pallid as the murder victims. Still, it must be said that the motivation of the demented killer is worked out with chilling, pitying conviction. Unremarkable as a genre thriller, then, but highly satisfactory as fictionalized social history. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

Gripping stuff!
A corker of a book! Carr's obviously done his research here (and judging from 'the devil soldier' he's more than capable). The combination of history, history of forensics and forensic psychology, profiling, etc., all mixed together with a healthy dose of psycho/sociopath on the loose is gripping stuff. How much is factually accurate, I know not but I'm not going to argue the point. His characters are likeable and fun, albeit a rather eccentric bunch; his villian is villianous and his plots twist and turn like twisty turny things. I first borrowed and read this several years ago, then bought a copy for myself - I've now lent that to a friend and not seen it since so will be replacing mine again soon. It will be one that remains in my collection to be read again and again.

Not really a page turner but…
An average crime story without surprises and twists. When I think about that book it reminds of a phrase I heard a long time ago: ‘Everything has been said before!’ Nothing in the story plot is surprising or exciting. The chase after the murder is a straightforward plot and not even the end of the story offers interesting or surprising moments. Why would you read that book? Because of the vivid and historically well researched descriptions of New York and its people in 1896. The book is also an interesting read if you enjoy forensics and the history of it. However, the character development is kind of odd and not very realistic in some instances. For example, the forensic team investigating the murders consists of a woman and a black man. Back at that time, the level of involvement of these characters would have been rather impossible or at least very different. I got the impression the author tried to be too politically correct. Another odd part is Kreizler’s mysterious childhood which influences his decisions in some cases. This part of the story is not sufficiently enough addressed and contradicts with the overall approach of explaining everything in great detail. All in all an average crime story and nothing you have to read.

More Complex Than An Escher Drawing
The Alienist is a book that is filled with both mystery and horror and it is absolutely riveting. Although a little over five hundred pages long, The Alienist is so fantastic and reads so well that we barely notice the pages going by. I read it in two evenings, something that is very rare for me; when a book is as good as this one is, I like to savor it and make it last.

The first thing that most readers will wonder about is the somewhat strange title. What, exactly, is an alienist? Well, as Carr explains, prior to the twentieth century, those who were mentally ill were thought to be alienated, from society and from their own true nature as well. Those who studied the pathology of mental illness were thus known as "alienists."

The plot centers around three friends: a journalist, John Moore; an alienist, Lazlo Kreizler; and a newly-appointed Police Commissioner who just happens to be Teddy Roosevelt. The three are working to solve a series of brutal murders that involves a string of boy prostitutes.

Teddy, as would be expected, is on top of everything and appoints Dr. Kreizler to head the investigation into the murders. Moore is included by association only, it would seem, since he and Teddy went to Yale together. Coincidentally, Moore has only recently returned from England where he was busy covering the Jack the Ripper murders.

Kreizler immediately begins to track the murders using what is known and what is unknown and via assumption as well. The twists and turns in this book are so complex and varied that both information and assumptions change almost as quickly as the team of investigators can piece them all together.

As would be expected, tracking a serial killer in New York City isn't an easy job. People die, disappear and are murdered with frightening regularity and, usually, with little rhyme or reason. Roosevelt, however, is determined. Not only must he solve the murders, he must also clean up the NYPD in the process. There are, of course, the usual assortment of people who simply do not want the murders solved, in this case, corrupt policeman, underworld bosses and even the city's elite. Virtually everyone seems to hold the attitude that the murder victims, being prostitutes, shouldn't matter. In fact, there are those who think the city should be glad to rid of them. This is a book filled with both social and political turmoil, turmoil that threatens to overwhelm the murder case and make it impossible to solve.

The writing is fluid and really first-rate. The pages fly by and the suspense builds like a danse macabre. The characters are fully-developed but a little dark. The only bright spot in this fascinating but bizarre book is Teddy Roosevelt, himself. But it would, of course, be impossible to paint Teddy all somber, all of the time.

The Alienist is a dark and offbeat book and one that borders on the macabre, but it is also one that is fascinating and extremely well-written. All in all, an enormous accomplishment.