Caleb Carr's The Alienist Book Review

 The Alienist 

By Caleb Carr

Published Year: 1994

Page Count: 614 pages 

Medium Used: Kindle Scribe 

Genre : Historical Fiction, Crime, Thriller, Psychological, Psychiatrists, Suspense, 2025-read. 

Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀

I had to recheck that this is not a narration of real life events but, indeed, is a work of fiction several times. The inclusion of real life people/characters like Theodore Roosevelt and J.P.Morgan didn't help my case. 

Brilliant! Fascinating!! Kept me on the edge till the very end. Even when I know its time for curtains to be pulled up, I was craving for more. A new perspective of looking at the mind and psyche of a serial killer. We read a lot about serial killers and how they carry on their terror reign until they are caught or killed but we don't stop a second to reflect on why they have become so and what actually triggers them about their victims. Even in this book, I didn't understand why the man is gravitated to immigrant children who are whoring themselves.. other than the notion that they are a reflection to the "dirty-ness" the killer feels to be within himself. These messages could have been repeatedly fed into his psyche by his over critical mother when he was but a kid. He is also irrevocably married to the religious brainwashing he is subjected to by his parents. Absolutely agree with Kreizler .. these people  should also be treated as victims of crimes of parents who are not even aware that they are making monsters and leaving them onto the world. 

 This is a story, narrated by a New York Times correspondent, John Moore, of how a group of five individuals,under the expert guidance of a psychiatrist/alienist, Mr.Kreizler, catch a serial killer and bring an end to his long running murder spree. They do it purely based on a psychological profile they draw of the perpetrator. Everytime one of their presumption checks out, I would feel an undoubted exhilaration course through me.The techniques they were hesitant to use (and were pioneering) like fingerprinting and blood spatter analysis made me really understand how outdated the times of  late 19th century were. (The world we inhabit today is very fast forward and the techniques employed are super ahead of those times.) There are some forces in the society - labeling themselves devout and God fearing - that don't want the alienist Mr. Lazlo Kreizler and his unorthodox methods to succeed in finding the serial killer. They want the immigrant situation to remain the same and for the regular detectives to find the killer. Its amazing and unbelievable how at every step of the investigation, the team faces hurdles in the form of witnesses who won't talk, thugs who follow them and don't hesitate from killing them if needed. All this created a tense atmosphere and these so called status quo maintainers have helped the serial killer stay one step ahead. Until the very end. 

I loved the whole atmosphere the narrator created. He has drawn up the serial killer's profile with such a compassionate hand that I felt pity for the villain even though it is obvious that if he is left to his own devices, he will never stop from hunting and brutalizing his victims. The victims he targets are boy whores .. immigrant children/boys who sell their bodies, dressing up as girls, for money. After killing them by strangulation, this murderer brutally hacks the bodies and takes his souvenirs. A lot of the questions are answered but a few remain unanswered because the end comes to this thug, prematurely. What can't be solidly answered can only be imagined and speculated. The actual count of his victims is also an unanswered question. We know what has made him the way he was .. and there might be many in society who are the same .. unwanted children, ill treated kids by unloving parents .. what is the antidote to poison that has been injected all their lives? Dr. Kreizler approaches these questions with a quintessential compassion and would have had a loyal patient if the events turned out differently. 

Must read for all historical crime fans! Cheers all. 🍻 🥂