The Alienist: A Novel (Dr. Lazlo Kreizler Book 1) Kindle Edition

The Alienist is an historical novel, set in New York City in 1896. Caleb Carr is a novelist and military historian, and a screenwriter (The Exorcist prequels, among others). (I encourage you to look up Carr's bio. He's a very interesting guy.) He's a masterful storyteller who admits to writing "The Alienist" with a cinematographer's eye. I'm digressing a bit to relate that, with the recent and very enjoyable Sherlock Holmes movies (starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law) in my memory, I couldn't help but see many of the scenes from the movie transposed over those of the book. Nor could I help but try to cast "The Alienist" in my mind. Additionally, the cable networks have been very interested in this historical period recently. "Coppers" is series that's caught my husband's interest. Another movie example is Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York". With these movies and shows having so captured the movie and TV watchers' interests, I thought that surely there must be an "Alienist" movie in the making, especially since the book is 20 years old. I found that indeed there WAS a movie in the making, but "was" is all it will be. Scott Rudin (who's responsible for dozens of wonderful movies, including No Country for Old Men, There Will be Blood, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and the brand new and very good Captain Phillips) had purchased the movie rights before the book was published. Alas, why Rudin didn't hire Carr as the screenwriter, I cannot fathom, but he didn't. Apparently, he and Paramount hired $2M worth of screenwriters who tried for several years to write the adaptation, but Rudin changed the characters' and the focus of the movie---utterly ruined it, from what I read. Sad. It would have been a great(!) movie.I read a mass-market edition of The Alienist. In that format, it was just at 600 pages. Unless a book is really wonderful, I tend to wear out when a book is that long. Not this one. It was a gripping read. I was sorry to close it up each night, and anxious to begin again the next evening. I'm also looking forward to reading the second in the series, "The Angel of Darkness".The narrator in The Alienist is John Moore, a crime reporter. He becomes the Dr. Watson to his long-time Sherlockian friend, Dr. Lazlo Kreizler, an "alienist", as psychiatrists were then known since mentally-ill people were considered to be alien from themselves and society. Aided by their college friend, Theodore Roosevelt, who was the NYC Police Commissioner--- at a time when the extremely corrupt NYC police force was the focus of Teddy's clean-up efforts---Moore and Kreizler are provided with a small team of people who try to find a child-prostitute serial killer. You can read all these details in other reviewers' comments. I'll focus now on why I liked the book so much.As always, story first. This one could have been a fairly routine serial-killer one, but the twists provided by the time period, the NYC setting and historical events, and the very interesting killer-finding team made it wonderfully enjoyable. Next, I thought that the writing was superb. Carr's phasing and cadence gave the narrative a turn-of-the-century feel. If you think about the letters of a Confederate soldier, or any of Dickens' or Bronte's books, you get what I mean. I forgot that I was reading something written by a contemporary writer. The story was delivered in a masterful way, with each chapter ending with a set-up for the next one. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. I also loved the characters, every single one of them. (Each of them had an engaging back-story, and I could imagine them showing up again in another book.) I even felt the compassion for the killer that Dr. Kreizler encourages his team members to feel. A thoroughly good read, and a book and an author I can't believe I'm only now discovering. Highly recommended.

The Alienist is an odd book. It's a mystery thriller about a quest to identify a rather ghastly serial killer, but the murders ultimately seem to play a secondary role to the novel's exploration of the political and cultural milieu of late 19th Century New York and the science--then only in its infancy--of forensic psychology. While that might sound like a criticism, it's actually meant as praise. While thrillers about serial killers are a dime a dozen, The Alienist is (at least in my experience) unique in its particular application of the historical perspective.Readers can expect to find a cast of both entirely fictional characters like Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (the titular "alienist," or psychologist) as well as recognizable historical figures such as Theodore Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan. The blend of historical and scientific accuracy with a fictitious murder mystery makes for an engaging read that should be applauded both for its ability to thrill the reader and for its ability to convey relatively large amounts of what might otherwise seem like obscure scientific or historical minutiae without ever becoming needlessly dry.While the novel is painstakingly accurate in its historical details, the interaction of that history with the fictional story occasionally strains credulity, but never to a point as to seriously hamper the reader's enjoyment. The state of psychological science is, for instance, accurate to the novel's period, even though the characters' ability to harness that science for their investigative purposes is elevated a bit beyond what seems entirely likely. Similarly, in order for the novel's political context to seem relevant to the story, the author had to create certain conspiracies that, while they make for thoroughly enjoyable reading, leave the reader occasionally pondering their plausibility.Despite these minor quibbles, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the novel. The characters seem entirely believable (if occasionally ahead of their time) and the reader will enjoy unraveling the mysteries of the human mind in parallel to discovering new threads in the mystery of the novel's murders. Plot developments are perfectly timed to keep the reader engaged without ever getting ahead of the author and the climax, while it felt a little bit rushed in comparison to the rest of the novel, is completely satisfying. I'd recommend giving it a read.

The books looks exactly like the pic shown and is a really interesting story as well

Vi la serie en Netflix y me gustó tanto que compré el libro.

Scorre bene, appassionante, si è curiosi di leggere cosa accadrà e che a che conclusioni giungerà la squadra. Personaggi credibili, molto interessanti l'alienista e Sara,i fratelli sono simpatici e John è un buon narratore.

O livro é excepcional, prende a atenção e surpreendente a cada página. A história é muito consistente, aguardando o próximo livro.

The reviewI really loved this book, I found it refreshing and different from anything else I’d read in the last couple of years. There isn't usually such a strong focus on psychology and the mind in stories like this but ultimately it was psychology and other types of criminal science that are the true hero of this book. I only found out this book existed after stumbling across the Netflix series and seeing it was linked to a book, usually I’ve read the book and then notice any TV and Film adaptations.I was thrown into the setting of this book, 1896 New York, life is not a simple, rife with racism, poverty and corruption (especially in the Police Force) New York is not a safe place to be. This is bought to life in the writing, I loved the historical facts and references made on this great city throughout the book. Transporting us straight into the streets, during journey’s in cabs the author directs us street by street point out monuments and important features of the New York culture at the time. The same hustle and bustle of the New York we know now but in an earlier time. We find out about the segregation within the city as the immigrant population increases and more cultures arrive. Throughout the book you understand the socio-economic status of New York.The Plot of this book is complex and full of mystery, for every question we get an answer to even more question arise. The whole story was tense and I really enjoyed the sense of discovery that the characters had with each step closer they got to identifying the murder. Not only was there the mystery of the murders but also the cloak and dagger behaviour of our band of crime fighters to keep the investigation away from the corrupt police department. I loved how accurately the mistrust and disgust of psychology criminal profiling and forensic was portrayed and created the basis for this story, portraying how other mavericks of science may have paved the way for newer, more modern detective processes. Having such a strong sense of setting really helped the flow of this plot.The thing I enjoyed the most was simply how anonymous the killer was throughout a large chunk of the book allowing for the focus to be on the investigation. We literally go from knowing nothing about them to slowly building a picture and we as the reader are taken through each step, seeing the early forensic techniques like handwriting analysis and fingerprint analysis being bought to life with a small bit of background on where these stemmed from is just so interesting. This will really suit some readers, people like me who really enjoy the how’s. If you aren’t driven by detail and/or interested in the scientific detail this book likely won’t be for you, the author hasn’t dumbed the process.I was drawn to Dr Laszlo Kreizler (our MC), his single mindedness, determination and belief in his craft is inspiring. He’s presented as almost unlikeable due to his peculiar nature and high intellect. He is the driving force of his team and selecting what is arguably his best friend, crime reporter, John Moore who due to the nature of his job can easily get into crime scenes and find out information. Sarah, the Secretary to the Police Commission who uses her position to locate information from Police sources and the Isaacson brothers, two Jewish Detectives who are shunned not only for their religious beliefs but their forward thinking ideas on detective work. Moore was probably the character out of the whole group that I struggled at times to get on with, sometimes finding him frustrating or a little to moany. I loved that the author put a pioneering female character into this book. Sarah is fierce and dreams of being a detective, she is the first of two women to be hired by the Police and sees the work Kreizler and the others are doing as a way to show a woman is more than capable.SummaryThis book is dark, with danger and a hella lot of mystery. It has a lot to offer people interested in Historical Mystery Fiction, however, I’ll be the first to admit the way this book is written can be hard going, if you don’t have a keen interest in psychology, criminal psychology and/or historical mysteries this could be a hard read for you. The action is also spread out with a lot of effort going into taking you through the investigation. The murders are also excessively gruesome and gory, so you need to be prepared to read for awful things, if you can’t cope with children under 15 being murdered this isn’t the book for you.For me the writing style although tough at times added to the authenticity and I ended this book feeling like I’d been with the characters every step of the way. My degree is in Psychology too which is another reason I enjoyed this book so much because I knew the theory they were talking about. Overall, this book just fit me as a person and I’d recommend you try it.