Surrender, New York

Dr. Laszlo Kreizler

by Caleb Carr

Caleb Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness, returns with a contemporary, edge-of-your-seat thriller featuring Dr. Trajan Jones, a criminal psychologist—and the world’s leading expert on the life and work of one Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, the hero of The Alienist, in whose brilliant but unconventional footsteps he follows.

In the small town of Surrender in upstate New York, Trajan Jones, a psychological profiler, and Dr. Michael Li, a trace evidence expert, teach online courses in profiling and forensic science from Jones’s family farm. Once famed advisors to the New York City Police Department, Trajan and Li now work in exile, having made enemies of those in power. Protected only by farmhands and Jones’s unusual pet cheetah, the outcast pair is unexpectedly called in to consult on a disturbing case.

In rural Burgoyne County, a pattern of strange deaths has emerged: adolescent boys and girls are found murdered in gruesome fashion. Senior law enforcement officials are quick to blame a serial killer, yet their efforts to apprehend this criminal are peculiarly ineffective.

Jones and Li soon discover that the victims are all “throwaway children,” a new state classification of young people who are neither orphans, runaways, nor homeless, but who are abandoned by their families and left to fend for themselves. Two of these throwaways, Lucas Kurtz and his older sister, cross paths with Jones and Li, offering information that could blow the case wide open.

As the stakes grow higher, Jones and Li must not only unravel the mystery of how the throwaways died, but also defend themselves and the Kurtz siblings against shadowy agents who don’t want them to uncover the truth. Jones believes the real story leads back to the city where both he and Dr. Kreizler did their greatest work. But will they be able to trace the case to New York before they fall victim to the murderous forces that stalk them?

Tautly paced and richly researched, Surrender, New York brings to life the grim underbelly of a prosperous nation—and those most vulnerable to its failings. This brilliant novel marks another milestone in Caleb Carr’s triumphant literary suspense career.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller, Historical Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Crime, Audiobook

598 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Caleb Carr was an American novelist and military historian. The son of Lucien Carr, a former UPI editor and a key Beat generation figure, he was born in Manhattan and lived for much of his life on the Lower East Side. He attended Kenyon College and New York University, earning a B.A. in military and diplomatic history. He was a contributing editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History and wrote frequently on military and political affairs.

Reviews

[Sara the Librarian · Rating 1 out of 5]

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 The Alienist (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 The Alienist 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 The Alienist 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!?

[Kate]

DNF @ 25%, which is over 150 pages. I’m not going to give a rating, although I’d only give one star if I rated the portion that I did manage to choke down.

The language in this book is just so high-falutin' and obsessed with its own pomposity.

"I understand your desire to get us out of here before your various superiors arrive. Particularly if they are being accompanied by any members of the media."



It’s also pedantic and scholarly when it least needs to be, and gives lectures on things that are immaterial and so boring.

The largely German-American valley of the Taconics now became a destination for families from eastern and southern Europe, particularly Italy; but the new arrivals who settled in or near Surrender were eventually drawn into the old feuds by obscure causes, coincidental slights, or simple boredom, choosing sides in a battle of whose real origin they were wholly ignorant.



The dialogue clangs discordantly against the formality of the narrative – liberally strewn with profanity and slang (and check out the sheer unbelievable length of this sentence, while you’re at it):

Yet the revelation that another teen in his own county had died under what were more than likely going to be revealed as suspicious circumstances seemed more to heighten the thrill of the endeavor that he had so recently embarked upon than to frighten him; and this reaction, in turn, intensified my own sense of Lucas’ mind being, in its way, as unnerving as it was impressive, a feeling that grew as the boy dove deeper into his role as a consultant with special knowledge: “But he probably got bussed down to South Briarwood Combined – they go from elementary all the way through twelfth grade at that school, it’s big as fuck-all.”



And sometimes it just plain doesn’t make any sense at all.

Mike told Lucas, as he continued to try to conceal, insofar as it was even possible, our work on what would likely have to be considered, now, the first three deaths.



All the little cutesy asides that I guess were an attempt at foreshadowing or something (I’m honestly not sure what they were for, beyond getting on my nerves) stuck out like sore thumbs:

Steve’s deputies’ cars, along with those of Fraser’s police force, had evidently been drawn somewhere else: and we would soon find out just where – and why…

That was the author’s ellipsis, by the way. Not mine. It’s in the actual narrative of this book.

So, no, I don’t feel terrible about sending this book to DNF purgatory. I felt like I was in purgatory every time I picked it up. I felt like



And that’s not what books are for, at least for me.

TL;DR: This review, much like this book, is itself TL;DR. I can’t in good conscience recommend this book to anyone except terminal insomniacs.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for providing a copy of this book on a read-for-review basis. All opinions expressed, however, are solely my own.

**Please note that all quotes cited in this review were obtained from a galley proof, and the final copy of the text may vary.**

[Althea Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

But... I LOVED 'The Alienist'!

Seriously considered DNF-ing this one at around 23%, but the problem is, it's a mystery. Even when a mystery isn't very compelling, one really kind of wants to find out who dunnit. I shouldn't have bothered continuing. GIANT SPOILER No one "dunnit," really. Sort of. What a rip-off.

OK, this is a sequel, of sorts, to 'The Alienist' and 'The Angel of Darkness.' However, it's contemporary, rather than being set in the 19th century. It took me a bit to realize that though, due to the narrator's stilted and affected mode of speaking. After I realized we weren't in the 19th century, I assumed the speaker must be like, eighty, or something. But no, it turns out he's in his 40s or something around there, although he keeps oddly harping on how old and over-the-hill he is. He's just a fuddy-duddy. Now, I could handle a book having an annoying, arrogant, jerk protagonist with a fuddy-duddy attitude - but the problem is, it's not just the protagonist. It's the whole book. The book keeps over-explaining things that any average reader ought to know, making cases for positions that are just a bit... off... going on terribly dull tangents, and just really getting things "wrong."

The setup: Dr. Trajan Jones and Dr. Mike Li are criminal investigators and followers of the 19th-century "alienist" or criminal psychologist Laszlo Kreizler. Dr. Jones is the protagonist, and Li is basically his sidekick and the excuse for an inexcusable amount of remarkably un-funny recurring ethnic "humor." (I mean, it was cringe-worthy). The two men's disdain for mainstream forensic science has gotten them "kicked out" of New York City, and now they're upstate, around Rensselaer County, reluctantly teaching online college courses.

It so happens I've spent a reasonable bit of time around the NY State locations that this novel features, and I thought my enjoyment would be enhanced by that knowledge. But I didn't feel that the depiction of the social milieu there was accurate at all. The author lives upstate, so go figure. I guess our experiences & perceptions are different. I also know quite a few professors, and I am happy to report that I know none who are as dismissive, unprofessional and disrespectful toward their students as these are.

Anyway, the two investigators are pretty much delighted when a local teenager turns up dead, so they can have a crime to investigate, rather than just the tedium of teaching. The deceased was a "throwaway child" and the book spends an absurd amount of time clutching its pearls and trying (but failing) to convince the reader that the idea that parents would abandon their teenage offspring is a never-before-heard-of ill unique to the modern era. And wait! This girl was not alone! Other "throwaway" children have turned up dead! And local police - and even the FBI - are strangely reluctant to accept any investigative help. However, Jones and Li insist on continuing to stick their noses in, given an edge by their rather unethical recruitment of a super-annoying local high school boy. Boy has a blind sister who serves as a love interest. Drama. Romance. Investigating. Random blather. More random blather. A bit more investigating. Some very boring revelations. Blah, blah.

For a book that puts "psychology" on a pedestal, it fails remarkably dramatically at creating believable characters with any depth at all, or convincing motivations for any of their actions. It's a flop.

I really did not like this book. And I think I'm done with Caleb Carr, 'Alienist' notwithstanding.
Nevertheless, many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the copy of the book. Obviously, my opinions are solely my own.

[Barbara K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m afraid I have to join the list of readers who were disappointed with this, Caleb Carr’s last novel, after having given 5 stars to The Alienist. (I also enjoyed The Angel of Darkness The Italian Secretary.)

A criminal psychologist/psychiatrist and his partner, a crime scene specialist with a PhD, have left NYC after their investigations produce results displeasing to the Powers That Be. They now reside in Upstate NY, not far from the Vermont border, and teach online courses in criminology for SUNY Albany. They are brought into a case by a local sheriff who feels the explanation for a death reported by the Medical Examiner and the local CSI doesn’t make sense.

And the game is then afoot (a line actually quoted in the book.)

In addition to the sheriff and the two exiles from NYC, the cast includes:
*the psychiatrist’s old-but-feisty-and-financially-comfortable lesbian aunt, on whose farm they live;
*a local teenager with an innate talent for criminal investigation;
*that boy’s blind-but-beautiful older sister;
*another teenager with intellectual disabilities;
*various members of the NY State Police;
*employees of the BCI (like FBI, but for NYS); and
*assorted corrupt politicos from Albany.

Not to mention the rescued cheetah the psychiatrist houses in a giant enclosure on the farm. Or the fact that the psychiatrist lost one leg below his knee from cancer as a child. Or that our heroes teach their classes and do their investigative work in a 1930’s German airplane in a hangar on the farm. (It’s a large farm, obviously.) And there is a Civil War veteran who first established the farm and made a cryptic statement that people puzzle over 150 years later.

The story is about as messy as the list of characters and the setting, but it is primarily focused on the topic of children who are abandoned by parents who disappear in the middle of the night due to financial or other concerns. This is supplemented by the message that contemporary forensic techniques like DNA and even fingerprints are frequently distorted by investigators to support the pursuit of a suspect the authorities have already decided is guilty.

Then, on top of all those gimmicks, there is the prose. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Carr was being paid by the word, because he never uses one where he can use ten. He is also fond of colons: he uses at least one on every page of the book. I have no problems with colons as a rule, when they are used sparingly.

So why three stars and not two? Well, it has the bones of a good story. The cheetah is undoubtedly included because Carr had an extremely close relationship with a rescued cat, but the story could have been a lot tighter without it. The aunt’s backstory could have been pared back a lot, and that plane was just totally unnecessary.

LBC

[Fred Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed this book as much as I did Caleb Carr's first, "the Alienist". This novel is about "throwaway children" who commit suicide, after they had been abandoned by their parents and left to fend for themselves. Their bodies however are arranged to look like they were murdered. The State of New York tries to cover the abandonments up by calling the deaths serial killer related. Outcast and snubbed by NYC police, but truly feared criminologists, Drs. Jones and Li, following the cases try to outthink and outflank the perpetrators, but become targets themselves. Characters and events come off the page and into your imagination to keep you reading. Lots of surprises, twists and turns, love and betrayal. And an extraordinary pet! A little long but you get to learn some criminology along the way.

[Rob · Rating 1 out of 5]

Surrender, New York. (2016)
By Caleb Carr.
Penguin Random House, 624 pages.
*

There’s no reason to mince words: Surrender, New York is a failed novel—at least in the non-proofed advance copy I read. It won't happen, but Penguin ought to delay release of this book, assign a stern developmental editor, and advise author Caleb Carr to excise a few hundred pages and rework some head-scratching and totally unbelievable detail. It pains me to say this, because two of Carr’s previous novels—The Alienist (1994) and The Angel of Darkness (1997)—are high on my list of thrilling reads.

Both of the above featured the character and/or theories of Laszlo Kreizler, the namesake alienist of the 1994 novel. During the late 19th century that antiquated term referenced today’s fields of psychology and psychiatry, which were in their infancy and seemed to the uninformed as mysterious as spiritualism. Carr fashioned Kreizler as a hybrid of criminal profile pioneers such as Cesare Lombroso (1835-1903) and Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914), with what I suspect was a bit of early Freud tossed into the mix—perfect for solving two Gilded Age serial killer cases.

Surrender, New York is the name of a fictional town set in equally fictional Burgoyne County, but in contemporary times. You can, if you wish, try to play the game of what the stand-in town might be, but all you need to know is that it’s three-hours north of New York City, within a reasonable driving distance of Albany, and that Route 22 runs nearby. Route 22 factors into the story as it is the artery that connects the Big Apple to rural New York, where local officials seek to track down a serial killer responsible for the deaths of several young people. A few local cops are perturbed by the direction of the investigation and call upon the services of criminal profilers L. Trajan Jones and Michael Li to assist them. The duo quickly surmises that the “murders” are, in fact, suicides, a theory that infuriates officials in Albany. Why? Because Jones and Li detect that the victims were “throwaway children” abandoned by their parents, but who seemingly made their way down Route 22 to the Big Apple and acquired the trappings of money. We are led to believe that New York’s ambitious governor, state attorney, and other Albany bigwigs would prefer a serial killer to an abandoned children scandal that might touch the rich and powerful. Find that hard to swallow? It is.

LT and Mike have to tread lightly, though, as they have no official standing and are, themselves, exiles in Surrender, having once been stars within the New York City Police Department before they got too close to blowing the whistle on powerful people involved in the man/boy sex trade. They rebounded by retreating to Surrender, where the Jones family has long been viewed as the local patriciate and LT’s aunt has a farm where he can den his cheetah—yes, we’re straying upon more illogical ground—and where the good “doctors,” who have Ph.D.s in psychology, can support themselves by teaching online courses for SUNY Albany on the “context” theories of—you guessed it—Laszlo Kreizler. Why Carr freezes the evolution of criminal psychology in the late 19th century is anyone’s guess, but fine. But I must ask this question: How much money does Carr suppose one makes teaching online? Let me answer that. It depends upon the number of students and the institution, but it’s in the $1,500 to $5,000 range—surely not enough to outfit the lab these boys have in the barn. Did I mention it’s filled with high tech links built into the converted hulk of a vintage Junker aircraft? Or that student protocol is to address an instructor as “professor” rather than “doctor,” and that both Jones and Li would have been fired in a New York minute if they humiliated their young charges with the language used in Carr’s novel.

Speaking of language, our highly educated doctors both speak as if they are escapees from a Mickey Spillane first draft, with a bit of teenaged bad boy mixed in. We do get some profiler deductive reasoning, but mostly it’s a procession of “F” bombs and rants on why forensics is garbage science. In fact, the book’s number one takeaway is that Carr hates, really hates, CSI in all its iterations. Jones and Li would also be arrested for child endangerment if they, as in this novel, took in a 15-year-old assistant, allowed him to view an autopsy, and constantly put him in harm’s way. I suppose it’s pointless to suggest that this character, Lucas Kurtis, always speaks the way that 15-year-olds speak only in the locker room, yet somehow is capable of leaps of reason that elude most adults. Should I even dwell on the point that he too is a throwaway child living with his blind sister Ambyr? Or that Ambyr is gorgeous and that she and the one-legged cancer survivor LT develop a “thing?” Carr’s descriptions of their intimacies are embarrassing—not because they are salacious, but because they are puerile. Should we get into the ethnic slurs good naturedly exchanged between LT and his Chinese-American partner? (Is this banter, or just an excuse for Carr to be a bit naughty?)

Let’s not; it’s simply not worth it. Had I not committed myself to writing a preview, I would have ditched 150 pages in. The solving of the central mystery isn’t particularly clever or complex; in fact, I had most of it puzzled out before I hit page 400—complete with exposing the red herrings. Here’s the unassailable fact for which you’ll need neither psychology nor forensics to uncover: even good writers are capable of writing junk. Shame on Penguin Random House for allowing this one to get past the first read-through.

Rob Weir

[Tom S · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is never a good sign when you start thinking about what you're going to read next when you are only on page 100. Carr is the author of The Alienist, which was very good. He misses the mark here.

[SueSyo · Rating 1 out of 5]

This may be the worst book I ever read. Loved the Alienist. Surrender, NY was DREADFUL Here's why:

1 - I actually don't believe Carr even wrote Surrender, NY. I think it must have been a ghost writer to build him a late-in-life retirement nest egg, propelled by earlier success of Alienist. It was written like a mass market throwaway (the word "throwaway" must have appeared 200+ times in the book too). This book defines no-effort "mailing it in".

2 - It was written as though the teacher said you must deliver "n" words. He used 3-4 times as many words as required to relay the the insipid story, and those were poorly chosen, meandering and circular, glued together seemingly randomly.

3 - The plot was pointless and senseless, inexplicable.

4 - You know how an author might use "'Hello' she said", or "'Wow' Joe exclaimed" or "'Oh no' Rob gasped"...? More than 10 times and counting Carr used "noised" as in "'Oh boy' Joe noised". "Joe noised".....? What an abhorrent affectation. Just nauseating.

5 - Everything was meant to be shocking and stunning, thrilling. Instead it was cheap and lazy. He just dredged up creepy things bad people do to other people, then listed these un-artfully over 600 pages.

6 - The character development was nil.

Don't waste your time. I have no idea what happened to this talented author. If I were him I'd withdraw the book from circulation and buy back any copies still circulating to protect my good name. Or maybe rewrite it properly in about the 200 pages it might deserve as a punishment to himself totry to make things right with the readers.

My #1 nominee for worst book award of 2016. I can't be alone. This was seriously bad stuff.

[Heidi (can’t retire soon enough) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remain a Caleb Carr fan and for the most part, I enjoyed this book... But it sure took a few hundred pages to get to the good stuff.

I adored our story's leading men, the back drop of Shiloh and Surrender, NY and the cast of supporting characters... Of all species.

But... There's that but. I guessed the ending way too soon and everyone talked (internally or externally) way too much. The pacing was off-- this book was at times both plot-driven and character-driven which I felt bogged down the momentum of the mystery at times.

Overall, an excellent read and I'd welcome another book featuring the good doctors.

(Reviewed 9/21/16)

PS— Weird glitch! — I forgot I read this book as it wasn’t marked as Read, so I borrowed it from the library — lo and behold, Goodreads resurrected my original review! Crazy!!

[Beth K. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm so relieved to be finished with this book that I don't even want to spend an additional 15 mintues with it writing a review.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

So disappointed by the writing in this novel. Caleb Carr was amazing in *The Alienist.* I wasn't able to finish *Angel of Darkness* or this latest novel. I felt like I was walking through quicksand, watching paint dry and watching grass grow all at the same time. As the main characters entered the trailer to investigate the initial murder, it took them pages and pages just to get through the first room. Reading *Bag of Bones* by Stephen King was much the same. "And then I took another breath. And then I took another breath. And then I blinked." So frustrating. Additionally, great writers usually master the art of "Show, Don't Tell." This novel could use a serious editor to reduce the instances of redundant and over explained themes. Better luck next time, I hope Carr returns to his original greatness soon!

[Lars Jerlach · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF
After this atrocious piece of writing you seriously have to wonder if Caleb Carr actually wrote The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness?
I only got about three chapters into this book, but I could write pages about the inconsistencies in narrative, the feeble plot, the flawed unlikable character descriptions etc. However, I will spare you the trouble and just let you know that the Surrender, New York is an awful book that is best left on the shelf.

[Christine Roberts · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley, Caleb Carr, and Random House for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I loved "The Alienist". Carr's "Surrender, New York" is an "Alienist" in modern times, and it just does not flow and inspire the way "Alienist" did. I had high hopes, and sadly this time I was disappointed.

This novel felt sluggish, and monotonous.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't make the mistake I made and ignore all of the one-star reviews of this book because you loved The Alienist. Just read The Alienist again, which is a very good book that holds up well. Carr must have gotten kicked in the head by an angry mule at some point in the past 25 years, because this book is TERRIBLE. I'm actually amazed it got published.

It starts off with the ostensible hero of the book railing against forensic science for several pages, which IMO is rather like having a protagonist who’s a Flat Earther. And Carr clearly has some kind of weird issue with fat people, because all of the scientists that the narrator hates are fat, and you can you can tell because he constantly shoehorns in fat-shaming vitriol like taunting “There’s a Golden Arches down the street!” to a character who’s just been through kind of a traumatic event (stumbling across two corpses, one of them an infant’s, in an abandoned apartment complex, and kinda-sorta being held hostage for a while).

The dialogue is terrible, with—and I know this is going to make me sound like a Mormon or something, but it’s just weirdly out place and unnatural-sounding—WAY too much swearing. The plot makes no sense, something about social services and government officials committing murders to cover up the “throwaway children” phenomenon, which… isn’t a secret? Juliette Lewis was in a TV movie about it when I was in high school, and I’m 42. This bizarre war between forensic scientists and police psychologists, which I’m pretty sure only exists in Carr’s mind (and don’t say “CSI effect”, because that is not what he was talking about) was just dumb, and there’s a WTF sideplot about a pet cheetah. And more than once he calls NAMBLA a “gay organization” and suggests that LGBT political groups would want to cover up murders of children committed by NAMBLA, which no, for fuck’s sake Carr, it’s 2017 and you’re not Orson Scott Card.

[Cathy Cole · Rating 1 out of 5]

I loved Caleb Carr's books The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness, so I was thrilled to see that he'd written another mystery. (Thank you, Net Galley, for your digital ARC of Surrender, New York).

Unfortunately, try as I might, I had to stop reading this book. Weighing in at over 600 pages, there might be a good 300-page mystery in there, but I lost the will to find it. It suffers from a fatal case of B&M (bloat and the meanders). Carr seems to have never met a tangent he didn't want to follow; it takes him pages to come to a point... if he ever does-- where oh where was the editor??? I just couldn't read any further.

I don't like to admit it, but...I surrendered.

[Agnes · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a hot load of garbage.

I can't help but wonder if Michael Connelly's very positive NYT book reviews had something to do with Dr Jones being the embodiment of a very particular kind of male fantasy.

I feel like the book's only saving grace was that the plot had good bones. It was an interesting and compelling mystery.

Unfortunately it can't be saved by that detail alone. The prioritization of telling over showing! The ellipses! The borderline racism and subtle misogyny!

This book is like a really shitty fanfic that you can't set aside because you need to see how the train wreck plays out, but you hate yourself for gawking along the way.

All of the 'ughs' out of 5

[Alexw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great who done it by Caleb Carr with the cops as buffoons and many twists and turns but the boss in charge of the evil was NOT caught which means another sequel-HOORAY !! -I look forward to getting the next sequel

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a world where every other tv show seems to be about forensic science, here comes a book that talks about how faulty that science can be. Or, I should say, how the science can be manipulated for the wrong purpose. This book starts off well but goes downhill.

Carr is a detailed writer. When he describes a place, you can envision it clearly. And I love his initial descriptions of people. You truly get a feel for who you're dealing with. That said, sometimes the scenes drag on and you start thinking, enough already. Let's speed things up here. There were so many extraneous scenes or lead ups to a scene. A good editor could have really tightened this book up. The author also insists on banging the reader’s head over and over again with his theory that almost all law enforcement agencies have tunnel vision. I felt like he assumed the reader was a particularly slow student in Trajan’s class.

There are also some things about the author’s mindset that disturbed me. Like calling a group of pedophiles “gay”. Please, there is a distinct difference!

The book’s plot runs to the paranoid and unbelievable. I was tempted to put this book down, but I stuck with it. I had enjoyed The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness, so I kept hoping the work would turn around. I wish I could tell you it did, but it remained a disappointment.

Still, my thanks to netgalley for providing an advance copy of this book.

[Al · Rating 1 out of 5]

What's a good recipe for a DNF book? Start with the prospect of 591 dense pages. Devise an opening scene in which the most exciting thing happening is the protagonist being frightened by a rabid raccoon. Write it in a turgid, clunky first-person style. Mix it with tin-eared, unrealistic dialogue uttered by uninteresting characters. Then season it with pedantic observations on the state of present-day criminal forensics, and a sophomoric competition between rival observers of a pathetic, depressing crime scene in a remote decrepit trailer. Sounds delicious, doesn't it? DNF after 42 pages for me, maybe DNS for you. (By the way, as usual, I wrote this review before reading any other Goodreads reviews, many of which I then found to be equally negative. Be warned.)

[Shereadbookblog · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having enjoyed reading Carr's previous novels, I looked forward to this one. What a disappointment. I felt as though I plodded through it, reading it in short installments near the end just to be able to get through it. I didn't have a problem with the prose, it was the story that seemed to miss the mark. I got the feeling that Carr fancied his two protagonists as modern day Sherlock Holmes and Watson or perhaps I looked at that as an excuse for what I thought was very unrealistic behavior by professionals. I am not one who tries to figure out "who did it" when I read a novel; I just like to let a story unfold. Unfortunately, the "who did it" was obvious early on.

[Gina · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 200 pages. I can't believe I'm DNF'ing this, but I just can't read any more.

The Alienist (Carr's first) is one of my all time favorite books - 5 stars and I frequently recommend it to others. The Angel of Darkness, follow up to The Alienist, a solid 4 stars. I even gave 4 stars to Killing Time even though it is universally disliked by all but me (a 2.76 average rating). I'm not going to spend time picking this apart, as it will just make me more sad. However, I can't help but wonder where the editor is on this and why he/she didn't at some point ask," Why do two guys from New York sound like they're from 1820's London?"

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again Caleb Carr brings you to his world unlike any other. Flawed characters all but each aware of their flaws and face them head on. That's not to say they deal with them. Besides Mike and LT, Marciella, Luther, Grace, Mitch etc compliment every turn the story takes. This is not a book to skim over parts for every bit is part of the total work of art

[L. G. · Rating 1 out of 5]

A disappointment

I will confess that when I saw this book was out on Kindle I immediately rushed to buy. I like the Alienist and it's sequel and I looked forward to this one . What a disappointment. Most of the book seems to be a third-rate discussion on the horrors of forensic science combined with his theories on post-ndustrial American decline . At various times I found myself thinking, " will you just get to the darn story." He takes entirely too much time with these useless side-trips. I soon realized it was entirely possible that this verbiage was nothing more than a justification for having a big book and charging more money to buy it. Spare yourself this boondoggle. Go to Wikipedia and see the plot summary if you must and spare yourself the money .

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

A harrowing look at the "throwaway children" epidemic and the psychological affects of that epidemic on the children involved, all rolled into a fascinating novel involving conspiracy, on line classes, death, suspense, and a cheetah (which by the way has an absolutely beautiful moment in the book that will reduce you to tears). Follow LT and Mike through a labyrinth of deceptions and political posturing as they try to unravel the mystery of 4 suspicious deaths. Tautly written, with great psychological insight; a not to be missed novel in Mr. Carr's cannon!

[Steven Z. · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those who enjoyed Caleb Carr’s THE ALIENIST and THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS his latest effort is something to look forward to. It takes place up in the Taconic area of New York state called Surrender, hence the title SURRENDER, NEW YORK. The novel’s narrator is Dr. Trajan Jones, a former criminal psychologist and profiler for the NYPD, who suffers from the effects of childhood osteosarcoma that forces him to be bent over while working on his online forensic course that he teaches for SUNY Albany with his partner Dr. Michael Li, a trace evidence expert. Their classroom is an old fuselage of a pre-World War Two Junker that Jones’ father purchased and flew to his sister’s farm in Burgoyne County, NY. Dr. Li is about to begin Skyping with his class when Deputy Sheriff Pete Stienbrecher pulls up in his patrol car and asks them for their assistance in a murder case. Jones and Li had been run out of New York because of their unorthodox methods and opposition to “forensic corruption” that has dominated some news cycles. Both men have a low opinion of CSI types who are so popular on television. When they arrive at the crime scene, there is a lot that is unspoken by Sheriff Steve Spinetti, particularly what is meant by “a series of murders” involving teenage girls. When Dr. Ernest Weaver, the Medical Examiner pronounces that the death of the fifteen year old girl “is cut and dried, murder of a teenage runaway, with possible sexual implications,” Jones and Li are very skeptical, as Weaver’s conclusions make little sense.

As Carr develops his plot his own views of the criminal investigative system emerge. Through Jones and Li, Carr complains that bullying, incompetent collection and observation of evidence made the chain of forensic investigation fatal to the field’s ascension to a true science. He argues that investigators have “careerist ambition” that leads to “tunnel vision” whereby supposed experts see and hear only those facts and theories that reinforce their initial impressions and suspicions in order to satisfy their law enforcement superiors to solve the case quickly. Carr calls this “cognitive shortcuts, that make ones initial; instincts, prejudices, and simple hunches appear the result of legitimate intellectual processes.” It is obvious that the author has a distaste for CSI television programs as they create expectations in investigating real crimes that are not achievable. For Jones and Li their work is hampered by serious political and turf battles as people above the Sheriff and his Deputy have political ambitions and are willing to “select, blend and pervert evidence in these murder cases to suit their own agendas.” Throughout the book there is a great deal of social commentary that is both caustic and thoughtful that enhances the flow of the novel. Another important area of concern deals with children that are abandoned by their parents so they have to make way all by themselves with little or no resources. Jones analyzes and has great sympathy for these “throwaway children,” especially when all the murder victims seem to fit that description.

The novel revolves around Dr. Jones and Dr. Li becoming drawn deeper and deeper into the investigation until it becomes extremely dangerous. It appears that there is a force that does not like where their investigation is leading them. The political powers that the doctors are up against want to blame the murders on a serial killer, but Jones and Li believe it has more to do with the actions of the “throwaway children” which is seen as an embarrassment to state officials, and evidence that leads back to New York City. When people who work with Jones and Li are attacked, the doctors realize how precarious their position is, and from this point on the novel becomes addicting.

The relationship between Jones and Li is very similar to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. Their banter throughout the novel is fascinating as they conjecture about the victims they investigate as well as the state of forensic pathology as they apply it to their current and past cases. They seem to mirror each other’s thought patterns and apply deductive logic in reaching similar conclusions. Their interactions are unique and entertaining as they are masters of wit and sarcasm as their dialogue contains many important conclusions for the murders they are trying to solve. Their approach is very flexible and resilient as they try and incorporate new methods and ideas to assist them, for example Li’s use of a portable X ray unit developed for veterinarians and the military for their cases. Their flexibility is also reflected with their relationship to a fifteen year old boy named Lucas Kurtz. Kurtz is another example of the “throwaway children,” but in his case he runs into Jones on his property and the doctor is impressed with the young man’s precocious nature and intelligence and as a result makes him a junior partner in their investigation as a junior investigative trainee. Jones’ reasoning is clear, he and Li are investigating the murder of fifteen year olds, why not use an expert of that age group. In addition to Lucas, Carr introduces a number of interesting characters. Derek Franco, Lucas’ autistic friend, also a “throwaway child” who has been adopted by Lucas’ sister Ambyr, a twenty year old blind women who is exceptionally bright, caring, and ultimately cunning. Adding to this group is Jones’ aunt Clarissa, who took him in when he was recovering from cancer, along with Li to live on her farm, and Jones’ large pet, an “African hunting dog” named Marcianna.

According to Michael Connelly, Carr’s work “is charming and eloquent between the horrors it captures,” further by linking his story and “making Jones the world’s leading authority on Laszlo Kreizler – the Alienist,” Carr is celebrating “the dawning era in the application of science to crime detection, from fingerprinting to other means of physically and psychologically identifying suspects [as] Carr now uses Jones to sound the warning that things may be going awry. Forensics should not be treated as faith.” (NYT, August 15, 2016) Dr. Trajan Jones is a wonderful character to build the novel around. He is an empathetic figure with a sense of what is wrong with society and how it might be improved. His engaging manner will capture the reader’s attention, and the result will be a very satisfying few days immersed in a painful, but real story.

[Jennybeast]

I eagerly awaited Caleb Carr's new book, but have had to put it down. While I love his consistently 19th century storytelling style, it is weirdly jarring with a more contemporary set of characters. I keep expecting time travel (it's possible that happens later in the book, but I doubt it), and the plodding pace, with digressions into local history, is less atmospheric and more just... tangential.

The reason I stopped reading it, however, is that I grew so annoyed with the deep arrogance of the main character that I just didn't care to see the book play out. I assume he will triumph, in the face of all stupid forensic assumptions. I expect he will once again be treated wrong by the overbearing forces of government. And likely will lose either his partner or the kid he recruited or his beloved pet to either arrogance or serial killer or aforementioned overbearing forces of government. Meh. I may pick it up later, but I doubt it.

Advanced reader's copy provided by Edelweiss.

[Louize · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ambitious and brave. I expect nothing less from a Caleb Carr novel.
I highly recommend this.

Read more from The Page Walker.

[Carla · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read all 598 pages of this book, hoping against hope that it would get better. Unfortunately, that's several hours of my life that I won't get back.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a very hard time with this book. I think the author has taken the prose of The Alienist and tried to force it into a more contemporary backdrop. The story itself was very convoluted and the extreme use of profanity did nothing but detract from the story. The only character I liked was Marcianna, Trajan Jones' "rare African hunting dog". It just didn't work for me.

[Anne Pusey Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pompous and misogynistic. No real plot.