The Angel of Darkness - Hardcover

Carr, Caleb

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679435328 ISBN 13: 9780679435327

Publisher: Random House, 1997

Synopsis

In The Angel of Darkness, Caleb Carr brings back the vivid world of his bestselling The Alienist but with a twist: this story is told by the former street urchin Stevie Taggert, whose rough life has given him wisdom beyond his years. Thus New York City, and the groundbreaking alienist Dr. Kreizler himself, are seen anew.

It is June 1897. A year has passed since Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a pioneer in forensic psychiatry, tracked down the brutal serial killer John Beecham with the help of a team of trusted companions and a revolutionary application of the principles of his discipline. Kreizler and his friends--high-living crime reporter John Schuyler Moore; indomitable, derringer-toting Sara Howard; the brilliant (and bickering) detective brothers Marcus and Lucius Isaacson; powerful and compassionate Cyrus Montrose; and Stevie Taggert, the boy Kreizler saved from a life of street crime--have returned to their former pursuits and tried to forget the horror of the Beecham case. But when the distraught wife of a Spanish diplomat begs Sara's aid, the team reunites to help find her kidnapped infant daughter. It is a case fraught with danger, since Spain and the United States are on the verge of war. Their investigation leads the team to a shocking suspect: a woman who appears to the world to be a heroic nurse and a loving mother, but who may in reality be a ruthless murderer of children.

Once again, Caleb Carr proves his brilliant ability to re-create the past, both high life and low. As the horror unfolds, Delmonico's still serves up wondrous meals, and a summer trip to the elegant gambling parlors of Saratoga provides precious keys to the murderer's past. At the same time, we go on revealing journeys into Stevie's New York, a place where poor and neglected children--then as now--turn to crime  and drugs at shockingly early ages. Peppered throughout are characters taken from real life and rendered with historical vigor, including suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton; painter Albert Pinkham Ryder; and Clarence Darrow, who thunders for the defense in a tense courtroom drama during which the sanctity of American motherhood itself is put on trial. Fast-paced and chilling, The Angel of Darkness is a tour de force, a novel of modern evil in old New York.

About this title

From the Publisher:

From the bestselling author of THE ALIENIST, this is his second tale of murderous deeds in 19th century New York. The book is a taut drama packed with memorable characters. I live in old downtown New York (and love history as well as mysteries) and I especially enjoy how well Caleb Carr has recreated the look and feel of (the optimism and depravity, the glory and darkness) of old New York and its multifarious nefarious denizens. If you like the life and times of Theodore Roosevelt, Jack Finney's TIME AND AGAIN or the film THE NAKED CITY (even though it is a different time period) you'll get totally caught up in ANGEL OF DARKNESS.
Teri Henry, Director of Subsidiary Rights

From the Back Cover:

"As winning a historical thriller as The Alienist. . . . The reader keeps right on turning the pages."
--The New York Times

"A RIPPING YARN TOLD WITH VERVE, INTENSITY, AND A FEEL FOR HISTORICAL DETAIL . . . Once again we are careening around the gaslighted New York that Carr knows, and depicts, so well."
--The New York Times Book Review

"GRIPPING . . . Carr is at his strongest, exploring the dark underside of the human psyche and ferreting out the terrors and tragedies that drive men--and women--to kill. . . . In Libby Hatch, Carr has created a villain whose cunning is nearly equal to his detectives' crime-solving prowess. . . . The mystery is plotted with military precision."
--USA Today

"[A] WHOPPING THRILLER . . . Carr keeps us racing along with him to the very end."
--The Washington Post Book World

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0679435328
• ISBN 13: 9780679435327
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 629