Caitlin: The Alienist

Hello readers, 

I wanted to make my post a book recommend this week. I'm a pretty avid reader (I obsessively keep a book a notebook and a pen on my person at all times) and one of the many things I love about my job is that all the people I work with are all reading different books in their downtime.  I get half of my book suggestions off of people at the theater, and it's really helped gel my workplace as a family. 

So this week one of my coworkers handed me a book that I'd watched him plow through in less than a week and I read it with only a vague idea of what it was about. I finished it in a few days and I'm in love. The book is The Alienist by Caleb Carr. 

This book is a little intimidating to look at. It's a period mystery with a lot of Jack the Ripper themes. It's also written in first person which I know turns a lot of people off, but I will compel you to try it out even if it doesn't seem like your style. 

The book is so very well reasearched. My boss is reading the authors next work which is set in the same world with a few of the same characters. I can't fault the author for this at all, he must have put years into the world building. And he manages to bring 1890s New York to life in an engaging way, even in the descriptive paragraphs where he's explaining the economics or politics of the day (all relevant to the plot in the end, so don't skip anything) he manages to make the information a compelling part of the story. 

I will offer you no spoilers or plot details beyond what is available on Wikipedia. It's a story about an investigation into murdered children in Victorian New York City. I will tell you that there are plot twist that left me gasping and turning to my friend Tom, who gave me the book, and asking "What the actual Hell?" He shrugged and refused to answer me till I finished the book. Which was totally the right call even though I didn't really trust him at the time (he's British which is fine but his accent is cheating. It just soothing enough to make you forget why you were irritated in the first place)

Let me know what you think if you read it,

Little C