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A review by museoffire
Surrender, New York by Caleb Carr
1.0
I know what you're thinking. Where oh where can I possibly find pages and pages and pages of information on how to rehabilitate a captive cheetah and turn it into a house cat? How will I possibly learn all there is to know about caring for, medicating, walking, and familiarizing my cheetah with my neighbors? Is there possibly some writer out there who has cleverly disguised an in depth guide to cheetah care inside an epic police procedural!?
Well wonder no more cheetah fans! Caleb Carr that one trick pony behind the phenomenal [b:The Alienist|40024|The Alienist (Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, #1)|Caleb Carr|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1388256626s/40024.jpg|2266643] (a book, incidentally, I am no longer convinced he actually wrote) who shall henceforth be known to this reader as the M. Night Shyamalan of literature has provided the mystery loving world with everything it could possibly ever want to read about how to care for a cheetah in upstate New York!
What's that you say? You thought he wrote deeply engrossing, psychologically intense historical mysteries steeped in insanely researched historical tidbits from turn of the century New York? So did I! Funny how things work out isn't it?
Seriously. What the hell Caleb Carr? Its so clear from this unmitigated disaster of a book that all you
wantedto do was write another [b:The Alienist|40024|The Alienist (Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, #1)|Caleb Carr|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1388256626s/40024.jpg|2266643] book. So why the hell didn't you just dothat?
Instead we're stuck with the astoundingly boring candidate for asshole of the year who's name I cannot be bothered to look up but who shall hereafter be known as Kreizler 2.0, a modern day criminal profiler who is engaged in a personal war with literally everyone in law enforcement because the big, bad people in charge think things like DNA evidence and forensic analysis are the keys to solving crimes and he thinks that stuff is stupid and we need to go back to traditional detective work like analyzing suspects and clues on their own merit and then working out who did it that way.
First of all I'm pretty sure this is an imaginary war. The fact that so much of the "plot" of this endless, endless series of digressions and clunking dialogue hinges on this bizarre battle between hard nosed, suspect beating, medieval cops and the super brilliant Kreizler 2.0 and his rag tag band of genius profilers speaks to how utterly boring the supposed mystery is.
That super fascinating part of this 500+ page doorstop centers on a phenomenon known as "throwaway children" something that is such a dirty secret of the welfare and social services department in New York State that the higher ups Kreizler 2.0 is fighting will do anything to keep it covered up. Essentially people decide they don't want to raise their kids so they "throw them away." Given the well known wretched state of the welfare and social services department in NY State and the well known derision with which it is looked on by literally everyone I was, understandably I think, a bit baffled by the need to "cover up" this phenomenon to the point where people start getting murdered, but whatever. The population of New York already thinks you suck guys, so you wanna make sure they don't think you suck MORE?
So someone's murdering "throw away" children and the staties don't want anyone knowing about it but Kreizler 2.0, his cheetah, and company will not stand for that!
I think it goes without saying that one man fighting the evil corrupt powers that be doesn't work all that well in this day and age. Yes, it happens I'm sure but I just had such a hard time buying that the entire law enforcing world is so bound and determined to undermine and destroy the career of the brilliant profiler before he uncovers how incompetent they all are. It's just not that interesting! At least not the way Carr is laying it out.
Dr. Kreizler and his revolutionaries in [b:The Alienist|40024|The Alienist (Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, #1)|Caleb Carr|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1388256626s/40024.jpg|2266643] were literally forging a new path and breaking new ground in criminal investigation. There was really no investigation to speak of as they tried desperately to convince anyone to even care about the murders of child prostitutes. They were breaking new ground, trying new, unheard of scientific methods to ferret out the guilty, it was exciting and exhilarating to read! And he didn't need a goddamn cheetah!
Kreizler 2.0 might be really smart but he's also a huge, HUGE a-hole and he's not saying anything you haven't heard a million times before. Where Dr. Kreizler's intelligence, brilliant teaching abilities, and affinity with the less fortunate made him stand out in 1880's NYC where literal goons were hitting people with billy clubs and calling themselves "cops" Kreizler 2.0 just looks like a self important dickbag who doesn't want to listen to anyone's opinion but his own. A few poorly trained forensic investigators fudged some numbers so all forensic science is bunk? How is that a well thought out conclusion? And what is with this goddamn cheetah!?
Whereas this reader sat bathed in a cold sweat while Kreizler and his team staked out rooftops in the darkest hours of the night waiting for a monster to act out an elaborate ritual murder on the cities least fortunate and least protected now I've gotta somehow wade through pages of Kreizler 2.0 shaking his finger at his cyber students who are just jumping to too many conclusions about how to analyze phone bill data and then going out to the cheetah compound to hang out with the goddamn cheetah.
These are all reasons I really, really hated this book. The story is stupid, Kreizler 2.0 is utterly unlikable as is his team; Mike his heterosexual life mate and business partner (but they're NOT GAY guys), Gracie who's a rising star in some department of law enforcement but she's a girl so it can't be THAT important she's just there to be Mike's love interest (I'm not even touching how much of a frickin' chauvinist Carr is underneath this ridiculous veneer of NOT being one), Lucas who's fourteen but of course instrumental to the case because he can "investigate" the actual throwaway children (which I've just realized he never actually does so what the hell...) and who's entire role can best be summed up as "the character who curses all the time", and the goddamn cheetah who hangs around being a goddamn cheetah.
The book is too damn long and full of this bizarre, ham handed, clunky dialogue full of things that people simply do not say NOW though they might have in the 1880's. And cursing! Good lord normally I don't care but there is sooooooooooooo much unnecessary "fuck this" and "you asshole!" being thrown around for no good reason. It all sounds and IS incredibly forced.
You don't even have a satisfying murder or psycho to sink your teeth into. After the brilliance of desperate, depraved Japtheth Drury and the hideous Libby Hatch Carr can't bother to even give us a real bad guy to get behind or totally revile. Everything just kinda...ends...
This was an unmitigated waste of time and I can only assume an attempt to cash in on the forthcoming "Alienist" television series that I pray to every god under the sun captures the total brilliance of that far superior predecessor to this its pathetic, pale shadow.
and what the hell was up with the goddamn cheetah!?
Well wonder no more cheetah fans! Caleb Carr that one trick pony behind the phenomenal [b:The Alienist|40024|The Alienist (Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, #1)|Caleb Carr|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1388256626s/40024.jpg|2266643] (a book, incidentally, I am no longer convinced he actually wrote) who shall henceforth be known to this reader as the M. Night Shyamalan of literature has provided the mystery loving world with everything it could possibly ever want to read about how to care for a cheetah in upstate New York!
What's that you say? You thought he wrote deeply engrossing, psychologically intense historical mysteries steeped in insanely researched historical tidbits from turn of the century New York? So did I! Funny how things work out isn't it?
Seriously. What the hell Caleb Carr? Its so clear from this unmitigated disaster of a book that all you
wantedto do was write another [b:The Alienist|40024|The Alienist (Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, #1)|Caleb Carr|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1388256626s/40024.jpg|2266643] book. So why the hell didn't you just dothat?
Instead we're stuck with the astoundingly boring candidate for asshole of the year who's name I cannot be bothered to look up but who shall hereafter be known as Kreizler 2.0, a modern day criminal profiler who is engaged in a personal war with literally everyone in law enforcement because the big, bad people in charge think things like DNA evidence and forensic analysis are the keys to solving crimes and he thinks that stuff is stupid and we need to go back to traditional detective work like analyzing suspects and clues on their own merit and then working out who did it that way.
First of all I'm pretty sure this is an imaginary war. The fact that so much of the "plot" of this endless, endless series of digressions and clunking dialogue hinges on this bizarre battle between hard nosed, suspect beating, medieval cops and the super brilliant Kreizler 2.0 and his rag tag band of genius profilers speaks to how utterly boring the supposed mystery is.
That super fascinating part of this 500+ page doorstop centers on a phenomenon known as "throwaway children" something that is such a dirty secret of the welfare and social services department in New York State that the higher ups Kreizler 2.0 is fighting will do anything to keep it covered up. Essentially people decide they don't want to raise their kids so they "throw them away." Given the well known wretched state of the welfare and social services department in NY State and the well known derision with which it is looked on by literally everyone I was, understandably I think, a bit baffled by the need to "cover up" this phenomenon to the point where people start getting murdered, but whatever. The population of New York already thinks you suck guys, so you wanna make sure they don't think you suck MORE?
So someone's murdering "throw away" children and the staties don't want anyone knowing about it but Kreizler 2.0, his cheetah, and company will not stand for that!
I think it goes without saying that one man fighting the evil corrupt powers that be doesn't work all that well in this day and age. Yes, it happens I'm sure but I just had such a hard time buying that the entire law enforcing world is so bound and determined to undermine and destroy the career of the brilliant profiler before he uncovers how incompetent they all are. It's just not that interesting! At least not the way Carr is laying it out.
Dr. Kreizler and his revolutionaries in [b:The Alienist|40024|The Alienist (Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, #1)|Caleb Carr|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1388256626s/40024.jpg|2266643] were literally forging a new path and breaking new ground in criminal investigation. There was really no investigation to speak of as they tried desperately to convince anyone to even care about the murders of child prostitutes. They were breaking new ground, trying new, unheard of scientific methods to ferret out the guilty, it was exciting and exhilarating to read! And he didn't need a goddamn cheetah!
Kreizler 2.0 might be really smart but he's also a huge, HUGE a-hole and he's not saying anything you haven't heard a million times before. Where Dr. Kreizler's intelligence, brilliant teaching abilities, and affinity with the less fortunate made him stand out in 1880's NYC where literal goons were hitting people with billy clubs and calling themselves "cops" Kreizler 2.0 just looks like a self important dickbag who doesn't want to listen to anyone's opinion but his own. A few poorly trained forensic investigators fudged some numbers so all forensic science is bunk? How is that a well thought out conclusion? And what is with this goddamn cheetah!?
Whereas this reader sat bathed in a cold sweat while Kreizler and his team staked out rooftops in the darkest hours of the night waiting for a monster to act out an elaborate ritual murder on the cities least fortunate and least protected now I've gotta somehow wade through pages of Kreizler 2.0 shaking his finger at his cyber students who are just jumping to too many conclusions about how to analyze phone bill data and then going out to the cheetah compound to hang out with the goddamn cheetah.
These are all reasons I really, really hated this book. The story is stupid, Kreizler 2.0 is utterly unlikable as is his team; Mike his heterosexual life mate and business partner (but they're NOT GAY guys), Gracie who's a rising star in some department of law enforcement but she's a girl so it can't be THAT important she's just there to be Mike's love interest (I'm not even touching how much of a frickin' chauvinist Carr is underneath this ridiculous veneer of NOT being one), Lucas who's fourteen but of course instrumental to the case because he can "investigate" the actual throwaway children (which I've just realized he never actually does so what the hell...) and who's entire role can best be summed up as "the character who curses all the time", and the goddamn cheetah who hangs around being a goddamn cheetah.
The book is too damn long and full of this bizarre, ham handed, clunky dialogue full of things that people simply do not say NOW though they might have in the 1880's. And cursing! Good lord normally I don't care but there is sooooooooooooo much unnecessary "fuck this" and "you asshole!" being thrown around for no good reason. It all sounds and IS incredibly forced.
You don't even have a satisfying murder or psycho to sink your teeth into. After the brilliance of desperate, depraved Japtheth Drury and the hideous Libby Hatch Carr can't bother to even give us a real bad guy to get behind or totally revile. Everything just kinda...ends...
This was an unmitigated waste of time and I can only assume an attempt to cash in on the forthcoming "Alienist" television series that I pray to every god under the sun captures the total brilliance of that far superior predecessor to this its pathetic, pale shadow.
and what the hell was up with the goddamn cheetah!?