The Alienist

The Alienist is a historical crime novel by Caleb Carr. It’s the first book in the Dr Laszlo Kreizler series and it was published in 1994. The Alienist 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 and won the 1995 Anthony Award for Best First Novel. Carr is a military historian and American novelist. He received a B.A. in military and diplomatic history from New York University. When he’s not writing historical fiction, he’s working on political affairs articles for leading American journals.

The Alienist begins in January 1919 in New York City. The narrator is a man called John Moore. He’s a crime reporter for the New York Times, and he’s had a very successful career so far. One of John’s best friends is a doctor called Laszlo Kreizler. Laszlo is an alienist, which is an early 20th-century word for a psychiatrist. He believes mentally ill people can be rehabilitated, and that they shouldn’t automatically be institutionalized. Laszlo’s one of the only psychiatrists who feels this way, and he’s alienated from most of his peers.

Laszlo and John are the main characters. Although the book begins in 1919, John spends most of the novel reflecting on the past—specifically, the spring of 1896. In 1896, John’s friends with Roosevelt, the New York City police commissioner. Roosevelt gives John tips and exclusive access to crime scenes. He’s also one of the only police officers who trusts Laszlo, which means they work as a trio sometimes.



One night, Laszlo’s servant startles John awake. He explains that Laszlo and Roosevelt need his help on a gruesome murder scene. John doesn’t want to visit the scene, but he knows that he doesn’t have a choice. He follows the servant to the scene and immediately wishes he hadn’t. It’s one of the most horrific things John has ever seen.

The victim is a 13-year-old boy. The murderer removed his eyes, his right hand, his buttocks, and his genitals. The boy’s covered in deep gashes and his throat is cut. It is unclear which wound killed the boy, but what’s more important is that the murderer is still out there. Laszlo suspects that the murderer is someone with mental health problems, and John agrees with him.

The next morning, John and Laszlo meet with Roosevelt down at the police station. Roosevelt wants to know what Laszlo is thinking. Laszlo’s spent the night examining the body, and he’s even more worried than he was at the scene. He’s examined a few murder victims recently, and they’ve all died in the same way.



John thinks there’s a connection between these murders, and Roosevelt agrees. He says he’s got five murder victims on his books right now, and they all died from similar wounds. There’s no choice now but to investigate the crimes. However, when Roosevelt tries to assemble a team, no one wants to work with Laszlo.

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

Laszlo asks around the police station to see if anyone will assist him. The dead children are all prostitutes, and most officers don’t care enough about sex workers to pursue the case. However, a female officer, Sara, and two Jewish officers, Marcus and Lucius, want to help. Marcus suggests they use a technique called fingerprinting to catch the murderer. Fingerprinting is a new technology, and it’s not legal yet, but Laszlo thinks it’s the best way to crack the case.



While the officers work on the forensic side of the crime scenes, John and Laszlo interview family and friends of the latest victim. They find out that the boy, called Georgio, lived on the streets after his father kicked him out the house. Georgio performed oral sex on boys at school, and his father beat him for it. Georgio eventually found work as a prostitute, and so it’s likely that a client killed him.

Laszlo wants to understand the killer’s mental state. He creates a pioneering new tool—a psychological profile. He and John reach out to local brothels, churches, jails, and mental institutions. Eventually, they discover that someone’s committing similar murders in a farm town outside New York. John interviews family members of the victims. He speaks with a man who suffered an abusive childhood who fits Laszlo’s profile.

Finally, Laszlo and John gather enough evidence against the man to prove he’s the murderer. Roosevelt arranges his arrest, but the man’s friends kill him before the police arrest him. They didn’t want him to spend the rest of his life in jail. Laszlo dissects the murderer’s body, but there’s nothing abnormal about it. There’s nothing to explain why his brain works so differently. However, for Laszlo, this is an exciting step forward in criminology and forensic science.