Book Log 2017 #4: Surrender, New York by Caleb Carr

I am a huge fan of The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness, and had been waiting patiently for another novel in the series while Carr wrote other novels (generally good, but not as good as the two mentioned above) and all sorts of publications for his day job as a military historian. A couple of decades pass, and then this book, set in The Alienist's universe, comes to light.

It's not really a sequel in conventional terms. The main character is a criminal psychologist who fell out of favor with the NYPD and moved to a farm upstate, where he teaches online criminology courses with a fellow NYPD refugee and trace evidence expert. They get brought back into the fold of detective work when the local sheriff asks for their help in the killing of a teenager, which appears to be linked to other teen deaths. The pair - working together and with their students - begin the process of investigating the case (and the related cases), with the main character applying the theories of Laszlo ­Kreizler (on whom he is the world's foremost authority) to help identify the killer. 

Even with the application of these old theories, the case (and novel) are decidedly contemporary, and asks some pointed questions about the use of forensic evidence like DNA (refuting the idea that such evidence is the "gold standard") and the general administration of justice, policing, and youth services in present-day America. 

It's a good novel, very suspensful and loaded with the sort of detail and diversions that made the earlier Kreizler novels so great, but I admit to being let down that it wasn't set in the turn of the 20th century world of those other novels. It's unfair to this book to put that sort of expectation on it, but I can't help it. 

It's very much worth reading, if you can be a bigger person than I and judge it strictly on its merits. But if you're like me and wanted a novel narrated by characters like Sara Howard or Cyrus Montrose, it's back to waiting.