Rating: 
Summary: The Alienist
Review: Suspensfully fun! I work in NYC and loved the historical facts incorporated into the mystry of the book. Very intreging and great!
Rating:
Summary: BRILLIANT, MAGNIFICENT, AND ERUDITE
Review: While I was working in the public library, a patron was excited about reading Caleb Carr's The Alienist. She asked me "Did you read The Alienist?" She was so enthralled with the book that I bought it that night. When I began reading it, I loved the book. It is one of the best books that I have ever read. Carr writes about criminal psychology and scientific investigation techniques that we take for granted in the 21st century. It was exciting to read about criminology in late 19th century America. The author described the harsh realities of New York in the late 19th century. Although the descriptions of the crimes are graphic and unsettling, the writer does not glorify violence. Carr explains and describes life in vivid detail. While reading the book, I critically examined the injustices, inequalities, truancy, and poverty within the late 19th century. All of the characters have events in their pasts that are important in understanding them. The historical details are incredible. He knows and identifies various persons and institutions in New York. I will buy this historical mystery book for a friend, instead of simply allowing a friend to borrow the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Insane Serial Killer Afoot in the Big Apple
Review: An alienist is a psychiatrist or psychologist studying abnormal behavior. Insane people are said to be alienated from their true selves. It is an old fashioned term, and the setting for this gory thriller is 1896 Manhattan.The book opens in a manner designed to capture your interest. A serial killer is mutilating very young male prostitutes. The mutilations are described in gory and perverse detail. If you were writing this book, what gory mutilations would you come up with? You'd be hard-pressed to out-do these. The most interesting character is the villain. The rest of the cast includes the title character Laszlo Kreizler, NYPD chief Theodore Roosevelt, reporter and narrator John Moore, a bad cop named Connor, a woman with a brain and speech defect, a pair of Jewish detectives with Roman names, and a good lady cop. I guess the bland narrator John Moore is an everyman designed to bring the reader into the story. He is you. The alienist seeks to discover the identity of the killer by analyzing him. Let's see, who do we know who is violent and out of his ever loving mind? The wheels turn in his brain, and by the end of the story he still hasn't figured it out and the serial killer remains undiscovered, free as a bird. Only kidding. The investigation is blocked by police and clergy. I guess that adds to the tension. By the way, now that I brought it up, exactly why is the investigation blocked by police and clergy? I can't give you a sensible answer.
Rating:
Summary: engrossing
Review: I just couldn't put this book down. It was excellent! I was never really a big fan of mysteries before but this book makes me want to read more. I loved it! i can't see how other people didn't like this book; i must admit that this book was well worth my time. a must read for everyone!
Rating:
Summary: Riveting....
Review: This was truly the most amazing book I've ever read...and reread! The story line is taut, a thriller from beginning to end. The inclusion of such flavorful true characters from history such as Teddy Roosevelt bring the story alive. Anyone with an interest in history and a passion for a good mystery will truly enjoy this book. The characters fairly jump off the page. One can almost see Sara with her pistol hidden in her dress, Stevie sneaking a smoke and Kreizler's dark eyes sweeping over you. I've re-read this book numerous times and the story never seems to get old. Your heart will pound, your will pulse race and your brain will buzz with each page. If you haven't read it, pick it up today!
Rating:
Summary: Good Trash Reading
Review: I enjoyed reading this book on the Amtrak train to New York and on the shuttle flight home. It was good, light, fluffy and entertaining. It was also flat, pedestrian and predictable. The characters didn't grip; they were hardly interesting. The history was grossly inaccurate or poorly related, which seems typical for historical novels these days when the author knows his readership consists of an ignorant populace which develops its views of history from sit coms. Still, for entertainment value, I recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Leaves me in AWE!
Review: "The Alienist" in my opionion was one of the best investments I made in a long time. This is one of those novels that I have passed on to numerous friends and family, and have been gratified with the same enthusiastic response I felt. It is an INTELLIGENT book! Well written, great characters and a suspenseful plot that keeps you intrigued to the end! I have also read the sequel, "Dark Angel" and all I can say is, when I finished these books my heart was beating so fast I wanted to yell out loud! If you truly love to read, as I do, then read these books - Caleb Carr knows how to tell a damn good story!
Rating: 
Summary: Didactic, self conscious, slow, poorly realized characters
Review: This book has been very successful, so I will pull no punches. There is more in one sentence by Conan Doyle (novel or short story), more characterization, more plot, more information, than in several chapters of this plodding, gruesome novel. And in terms of style (and despite its gruesome vulgarities) this novel often struck me as if it were written for children. Further, the characters are just not believable as people living in the 19th century. The protagonist's attitude is not even believable as a mid-20th century attitude. It is clearly a late 20th century, politically correct attitude which puts itself forward so didactically, that if the slowness of the plot, flatness of the characters, and dullness of the style did not put me off, the thinly-veiled lecturing would. The writer also seems so self-consciously concerned with presenting the main female character as strong, that he protests too much. He finds it virtually impossible (and patronizingly so) to refer to anything she does without attaching the word strong or firmly or without fear, and on and on, as if even after 200 pages of such reminders, HE fears we might forget that she's the toughest character in the book. Ironically, this charicatures her so much that soon I didn't even believe her to be a real human being. He actually has her draw a gun on her friends and threaten them when one of them refers to her as a lady(see p. 258 in the mass market paperback version). The result is unintentionally comic (reminds me of a Dusty and Lefty skit in Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion) and totally unbelievable. And the research that went into this book is delivered dully, not in the way a man living in the 19th century would deliver it, not obliquely or offhandedly, or even incompletely as you might imagine an actual 19th century NYC citizen might who forgets that you might not know everything he knows. No, the information is delivered with a dryness and directness and thoroughness worthy of an encyclopedia (one wonders if he had his nose in one as he was writing), not a novel. And one more little annoyance: the protagonist allegedly graduated from Harvard University in the mid-to-late 1800s, and yet I find it difficult to believe that such a narrator would split his infinitives at virtually every opportunity. I can recommend this book to no one.
Rating:
Summary: Doctorow does it better
Review: While I have to admire the goal that Carr sets for himself in trying to write a historical novel that has the same psychological impact as Silence of the Lambs, I don't think he succeeds. Neither the history nor the thriller aspects are sufficiently realized. The serial killer theme somehow seems absurd in the milieu in which it is presented and the introduction of real historical figures just detracts from rather than adding to the story - much like a star cameo in a movie ("Look ma, that's John Wayne as a Roman Centurian"). So, even though Teddy Roosevelt was the police commisioner at this time, having him as a character in this story just seems to divert attention from the story, especially since we don't get a picture of T.R. as a fully rounded character. Then too, the language of the book seems unnaturally stiff. I assume that Carr has adopted this style because he thinks it appropriate to the period and to the nature of his hero - an early version of a forensic psychiatrist. But for the reader, the style is painfully artificial and mutes whatever sense of verisimilitude may be achieved by other period detail. I personally think that E. L. Doctorow handles this kind of fiction better. His plots are not as bizarre and his style is much more pleasing to the ear.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but....
Review: A very interesting novel, but the writing was remarkably stiff. Despite a wealth of detail, the characters and settings failed to come alive (in *this* reader's imagination, anyway). I may try "Angel of Darkness" nonetheless.
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