Agnieszka's Reviews > Alienista

The Alienist by Caleb Carr is a clever combination of a historical, psychological and crime thriller novel. Embedded in a specific time and place, New York, 1896, focuses not only on solving gruesome crimes but also, perhaps even in the first place, finding a satisfactory answer what shaped the perpetrator and made him the man he became.

After a series of brutal killings of boys prostitutes a specific team is formed to capture and stop the murderer. Journalist John Moore, two Jewish investigators, feisty police secretary, Sara - the employment of women in the police was still in its infancy, and the most interesting of them, unorthodox Dr. Laszlo Kreizler. He is an alienist, today we would say a profiler and psychologist-criminologist, who strongly believes that no man is born a killer, only individual conditions make him that. Of course this view is not that popular and gives our character a lot of troubles.

The main task of our home-grown sleuths is to create killer’s portrait for Kreizler predicts the mutilations the corpses were subjected to are probably mirrored by the real situations from killer's own life. The novel abounds in some drastic, graphic descriptions but it does not feel like just an empty literary device aimed at shocking the reader.

If you are a fan of fast-paced crime stories - then stay rather away. The Alienist is a painstaking, even meticulous combining of puzzle elements, citing works from the field of psychology and psychiatry with a special bow to William James, treading dozens of paths and traces. But if you don’t mind a realistic image of a city at the turn of the century, a city full of social unrest and inequality, if you want to get acquainted with the beginnings of modern criminology, if you are not frightened by the tedious and inquisitive detective work - you should feel satisfied. Narration, unhurried and slightly archaic, full of detailed descriptions of places, buildings, even meals makes it easier to find yourself in that epoch.

Definitely New York from the epoch came out the more impressive and atmospheric - albeit it's not that dashy and glamorous city Edith Wharton or Henry James presented in their works, rather its dirty underbelly. New York in the novel is primarily a city of thieves and prostitutes, immigrants and the poor; districts of crowded and dirty slums, seedy brothels and dangerous alleyways, the places you could fire a shotgun in any direction without hitting an honest man. Finally, the city divided into specific areas of influence, ruled by gangsters, politicians or church hierarchs.

And to end this longish writing a few words about the protagonists. I think Carr took too little care of them; his main heroes feel too stereotypical at times, too sketchy drawn and secondary characters, from the other hand, seem to be too good to be true and the whole relationship between John Moore and dr Kreizler inevitably brings to mind Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Also some situations I found a bit far-fetched that just left me with but seriously ?

Despite the reservations The Alienist as a whole has provided me an interesting and gripping reading experience.

3,5/5