The Alienist

The Alienist is a crime novel by the American writer Caleb Carr, published in 1994. It is set in New York City in 1896 and opens the Kreizler series.

John Schuyler Moore, a New York Times reporter, is called out at night by his old friend Dr Laszlo Kreizler, a psychologist, or alienist, who studies the minds of criminals. On the half-built Williamsburg Bridge the two men view the mutilated body of an adolescent boy who had worked as a prostitute.

Theodore Roosevelt, newly appointed as police commissioner, takes the unusual step of asking the two men to investigate, counting on Kreizler's understanding of criminal minds and Moore's knowledge of the city's underworld. Their small team also includes a woman detective, Sara Howard, and a pair of brothers from the police department, appointments that were themselves unusual for the period.

Carr builds the book around the methods of the period, including the new use of fingerprinting and psychology as investigative tools, and sets it among the tenements and institutions of the city. It was followed by The Angel of Darkness and later by a television adaptation.