This my first read from Caleb Carr though I have started this book a couple of times, but something always got in the way. So I was determined to stick with it this time, which I did though by the end, I was happy to see it end. The story is set in the late 1890's in New York City, when Teddy Roosevelt is chief of police. He is a peripheral figure, the main protagonist being John Moore, school mate of Roosevelt's along with the mysterious and notorious Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, who is an alienist, an expert on mental pathologies. The year is 1896 and a serial killer is on the loose. Because of city politics, Roosevelt cannot go through the normal channels, the corrupt police department. Thus, he enlists Kreizler, Moore, a female secretary and friend of Moore, and two brother detectives. Kreizler is out not only to catch the serial killer but prove his theory of radical determinism, believing that the serial killer is not responsible for his actions because of negative conditioning, his sordid, violent upbringing.
The group, led by Kreizler and Moore, painstakingly follow the killer's trail, putting together the details they glean from both the present murders and what they can discover about his past. Eventually, the evidence, mostly from his past and hints that he's left, leads them to discover who he is, an adult who was battered as a child, trap him and end up killing him, of course.
About mid way through, the novel becomes tedious, as the reader gets tired of the slow accumulation and analyzing of details, Kreizler's theories, there long meetings about the evidence, and long dinners at Delmonicos, all the side tracks, are infuriating. All we want is for them to find the killer, the novel to end. It's heavy on the details of life back in the 1890's of New York City, rift with graft, violence, poverty and political favors. It's not a very attractive view of this period in the history of a great city.
No comments:
Post a Comment