The Alienist

The Alienist, by Caleb Carr, is a New York Times-bestselling historical thriller originally published in 1994 and adapted for television as a TNT series in 2018. A historian by trade, Carr applies his expertise to The Alienist as well as its sequels, The Angel of Darkness (1997) and Surrender, New York (2016). Set in New York City in 1896, The Alienist tells the story of Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a psychologist (“alienist,” in the parlance of the day) who leads a secret investigation into a string of gruesome killings. He is assisted by John Schuyler Moore, a New York Times police reporter who acts as the story’s narrator; Sara Howard, the police commissioner’s secretary and an aspiring detective in an age when no women had yet ascended to that position; and the Isaacson brothers, Marcus and Lucius, new recruits to the detective ranks who bring fresh ideas and substantial knowledge of modern forensic methods. Kreizler subscribes to a theory of individual psychological context, which posits that childhood experiences, especially traumas, have substantial influence on a person’s behavior in adult life. Using this theory of context, Kreizler teaches his fellow investigators to build a psychological profile of a savage killer who is murdering and mutilating children who are being commercially sexually exploited, nearly all of whom are boys wearing makeup and dressed as girls.