Review of The Alienist

"The Alienist" by Caleb Carr is probably one of the best pieces of crime fiction written in recent history. It does for the 1890's New York City what LA Confifential did for 1950's Los Angeles. The plot, characters and setting all get high marks. To be honest I have no good excuse in my delay to read "The Alienist."

I will eschew with discussing the finer points of the plot, it is a great read and I would not want to spoil it for anyone. But unless your group is really mature and open minded, I would not translate "The Alienist"0 directly to a Victorian Era setting (Cthulhu, Space 1889, etc.). It is a gruesome and equally disturbing tale equal to Jack The Ripper, save the victims are children, specifically very young gigolos. If your convictions or stomach are at all squeamish this may not be the book for you. A great plot point is that the story's scope is beyond that of an investigation, the effects of the murders are shown in many different lights. From the gamer's perspective, this is a really entertaining textbook.

The gaming value of "The Alienist" is several fold. The first is the setting, the novel covers both sides of New York City well. The reader travels from the lowly tenements to the upscale town houses and everything in-between. Caleb Carr not only provides a variety of authentic (so much as a novel can be) settings, but also sets them in the context of how the people lived. If the conditions immigrants lived in were half as bad as portrayed the "The Alienist" it would still be beyond our modern conceptions of living conditions. But this is important from the context of gaming because not every adventure takes place is the nice places.

Another really good lesson in "The Alienist" is the crime and psychological techniques of the times. Some techniques we take for granted today, fingerprints, was not an accepted investigative technique in the mid-1890's.

One of the obvious things that could be taken away from "The Alienist" are the characters, which could be used as PC or NPC archetypes in a pinch. You have the psychologist, the politician, the killer, the detectives, the medical examiner (in the psychologist and one of the detectives), the feminist, the kid and lastly the journalist. There are some smaller side characters that might make for good one shots or window dressing, but the core of "The Alienist" is the investigators, specifically Moore, Sara and Dr. Kreizler. The serial killer is revealed slowly through both construction and deconstruction of his personality. A great indirect method for introducing an NPC.

There is little doubt that Caleb Carr is a great writer. "The Alienist" sometimes steps into 1990's mores rather than 1890's. Also sometimes Carr spends overlong on certain plot points and somewhat rushes some key plot points. The book is written in first person perspective, the journalist, so perhaps this perceived lapse could be attributed to the character's perspective. Neither takes away from "The Alienist," but are noticeable in retrospect.

I could have written this review as follows: buy this book! But hopefully if you have been waffling on reading this book, you will. It is great and the ideas that can be applied are worth it, entertainment aside.