The Alienist

The worldwide bestselling modern classic is now available on CD for the first time at a great value—in time for the TNT original series starring Daniel Brühl, Luke Evans, and Dakota Fanning!

The year is 1896. The city is New York, and a serial killer is on the loose. Newspaper reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned by his friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—a psychologist, or “alienist”—to view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy abandoned on the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge. From there, the two embark on a revolutionary new effort in criminology: creating a psychological profile of the perpetrator based on the details of his crimes. They’re soon joined by Sara Howard, the first woman hired by the New York City Police Department. The team’s dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who will kill again before their hunt is over.

Part Arthur Conan Doyle, part The Silence of the Lambs, The Alienist conjures up Gilded Age Manhattan, with its tenements and mansions, corrupt cops and flamboyant gangsters, shining opera houses and seamy gin mills. It’s the “high-spirited, charged-up and unfailingly smart thriller” (Los Angeles Times) that proved Caleb Carr as a master at depicting the unsettling forces that tremble beneath everyday life, in what became a touchstone of historical suspense.

Caleb Carr is the critically acclaimed author of The Alienist, The Angel of Darkness, The Lessons of Terror, Killing Time, The Devil Soldier, The Italian Secretary, The Legend of Broken, and Surrender, New York. He has taught military history at Bard College, and worked extensively in film, television, and the theater. His military and political writings have appeared in numerous magazines and periodicals, among them The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in upstate New York.

Edward Herrmann's films include Nixon, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Annie, and The Aviator. On television's Gilmore Girls he starred as the patriarch, Richard Gilmore. He has also appeared on The Good Wife, Law & Order, 30 Rock, Grey's Anatomy, and Oz. He earned an Emmy Award for The Practice, and remains well-known for his Emmy-nominated portrayals of FDR in Eleanor and Franklin and Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years. On Broadway, he won a Tony Award for his performance in Mrs. Warren's Profession.