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Portraying New York City circa 1897 as a time bomb of political corruption and violence, Caleb Carr returns to familiar territory in
The Angel of Darkness, the sequel to his international bestseller,
The Alienist. Also a stand-alone novel,
The Angel of Darkness brings together the same cast of characters from
The Alienist but the relating of their recent psychological investigation has shifted from John Moore to 13-year-old Stevie Taggert. Abandoned by his drug addict mother, raised on the streets and in love with a teenage prostitute, Stevie's narration brings to the novel a tender combination of streetwise nonchalance and a tentative optimism that has been fostered by Dr Laszlo Kriezler's care. But even Stevie isn't prepared for the case of Libby Hatch--a dangerous caretaker who leaves in her wake a trail of dead children and who has kidnapped the child of a Spanish diplomat. Racing against the clock of Libby's psychosis and a legal system that has blinkered itself to such atrocities, the group struggle to find the key that will reveal Libby's murderous nature. A fascinating exploration of the very modern theme of motherhood and its role in society,
The Angel of Darkness is a taut, page-turning thriller set against a gloomy Dickensian backdrop of crime and depravation. --
Shannon Bingham
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From Kirkus Reviews
An absorbing if overlong sequel to Carr's popular 1994 thriller, The Alienist. As in that novel, the figures of ``alienist'' (i.e., psychologist) Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, investigative journalist John Schuyler Moore, and Kreizler's assistant Stevie ``Stevepipe'' Taggert (who tells the story) figure prominently in the investigation of a peculiarly dastardly crime. The year is 1897, and Carr's plot is initiated by the kidnapping of a Spanish diplomat's baby--then thickens, quite pleasurably, as suspicion falls on Elspeth Hunter, a malevolent nurse who is actually Libby Hatch, a malevolent gang moll and the suspected murderess of her own children. The pursuit, capture, and attempted conviction of Libby involve such notable historical figures as painter Albert Pinkham Ryder, women's-rights crusader Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Libby's defense attorney Clarence Darrow (who dominates a fascinating extended courtroom scene), and (back also from The Alienist) New York City Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, who commandeers the US Navy to aid in the story's climactic pursuit. Carr overloads his tale with digressive comments on ever-worsening political relations between the US and Cuba (though one can argue such passages' relevance to the novel's initial mystery), and disastrously slows down the otherwise absorbing courtroom scenes by including needless detailed summaries of cases of child murder offered as precedents. But these are minor blemishes. Carr has learned to plot since The Alienist, and this novel usually moves at a satisfyingly rapid pace. The ambiance is convincingly thick and period-flavorful, the murderous details satisfyingly gruesome, and even the somewhat shaky central ethical question--whether ``a woman's murdering her own kids . . . could actually be looked at as her trying to gain control over her life and her world''--is quite convincingly presented. As for the nefarious Libby--presented, with perfect appropriateness, only as others see and hear her--she rivals Lydia Gwilt of Wilkie Collins's Armadale as the pluperfect villainess, and the centerpiece of an enormously entertaining and satisfying reading experience. (Author tour) --
Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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