The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

Okay, so The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr was a bit of a side quest for me. This is ordinarily not the type of novel that I'd read, but a copy showed up at my local book swap, and I was intrigued because I'd heard so much about The Alienist. And, while this is clearly book two in a series, I didn't feel too out of my depth, and I'm sufficiently intrigued to go pick up book one should I cross paths with it.

Set in New York during the late 1800s, this story is told from the perspective of the delightfully disreputable Stevie Taggart, a chain-smoking kid saved from a life of crime by Dr Laszlo Kreizler, a psychiatrist known for his (at the time) unconventional methods of understanding how people's minds work. Accompanied by friends such as journalist John Schuyler Moore, private investigator Sara Howard, and police detectives Marcus and Lucius Isaacson, and the enigmatic Cyrus Montrose, Kreizler is off on an adventure to find a missing child. But nothing is as simple as that, when they realise their work is far more dangerous and darker than initially expected.

Look, I really don't want to spoil the plot by giving too much away, so I'm going to focus on what I loved – which was the teamwork and the camaraderie between characters. Everyone brings something special to the table, and we have moments of humour interspersed with the serious business of solving a mystery. What becomes immediately apparent is that Carr knows his stuff in terms the setting, and he really makes New York City come alive for me in vivid Technicolor. So I really did feel authentically immersed in the period. (A huge plus point for anyone who wants a bit of a field trip into the past.)

That being said, I did feel that the novel plodded on a bit too long – part mystery, part court-room drama, but even though it felt like a slog at times, I was so invested in the characters, that I was genuinely sad to let them go when I reached the end. Carr's writing style is engaging, and he treats often problematic subject matter with great sensitivity. And yeah, there's some stuff here that shows the not-so-nice side of a big city that I've never seen so frankly examined.

I did feel as if the plot wrapped in a way that I could almost see coming, but it was still fun, and there were elements that were truly tragic. I really do need to go pick up The Alienist now, but if you like me, haven't read it either, although there will be stuff referenced in The Angel of Darkness that you won't have context for, it won't be a dealbreaker for following what's happening in book two.