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Overall Summary

The Alienist is a historical crime novel that was written by Caleb Carr. It’s the first book in The Dr Laszlo Kreizler series and it was published in 1994. The story follows a newspaper reporter and a doctor who undertake revolutionary criminology work in New York City. The book spent six months on the New York Times bestseller list, won the 1995 Anthony Award for Best First Novel, and has been translated into 20 languages.

The novel is set in New York City during the year 1919. The main character, John Moore, is a crime reporter for the New York Times who has had many successful years as a journalist. He’s friends with Dr Laszlo Kreizler, an alienist (a psychiatrist) who believes that mentally ill people can be rehabilitated and shouldn’t be institutionalized automatically. However, he’s alienated from most of his peers because they don’t share this view.

The main characters are Laszlo and John. The book begins in 1919, but most of it takes place in 1896. In that year, John’s friends with Roosevelt, the New York City police commissioner. They trust each other because they work together sometimes on cases involving crime scenes and murders.

One night, Laszlo’s servant wakes John up. He says that Laszlo and Roosevelt need to talk with him about a murder scene. John doesn’t want to go, but he knows he must because it is his duty as an officer of the law. So he follows his servant to the scene and immediately wishes he hadn’t gone there. It was one of the most horrific things John had ever seen in his life; it was worse than anything else he’d ever seen at a crime scene before. The victim was a 13-year-old boy who had been stabbed multiple times in various parts of his body (his throat slit, eyes removed, buttocks cut off). There were no suspects yet so they didn’t know if this would be solved quickly or not; however, they did have some suspicions about what might have caused someone to do something like this—the murderer could have mental health problems or something similar since this wasn’t normal behavior for anyone who isn’t mentally ill or unstable in some way.

The next morning, John and Laszlo meet with Roosevelt down at the police station. Roosevelt wants to know what they’re thinking about the murder. He’s been looking into it all night, and he’s even more worried than he was at the scene. He’s seen a few other murders recently that have happened in this way, so now he thinks there must be a serial killer on the loose who is killing people in exactly this manner.

John and Roosevelt think there’s a connection between the murders. They both agree that they need to investigate it, but no one wants to work with Laszlo.

Roosevelt knows that Laszlo is the best man for the job, but he can’t go against his colleagues. He steps back from the main investigation and lets Laszlo work under the radar with Roosevelt’s blessing. John will assist him. Roosevelt agrees to meet up with John and Laszlo periodically to discuss their progress on the case.

Roosevelt: ”John, I’m going to have you help out Mr. Lazslo in this case.”

Laszló: ”Thanks for your support, sir.”

Roosevelt: ”I know you’re a good detective, so I want you both working together on this one.”

Laszlo asks around to see if anyone will help him. He learns that the police are not interested in investigating the murders of prostitutes, so he decides to ask for assistance from Sara and Marcus. They suggest using fingerprinting as a way to catch the killer. Laszlo thinks it’s an excellent idea because fingerprinting is new technology, but it isn’t legal yet.