With the release of Surrender, New York drawing closer, the first trade reviews for Caleb Carr’s new thriller that have emerged this past week should excite his readership. Booklist, the American Library Association’s book review magazine, praised the novel in their starred review (a star is assigned to works Booklist editors believe are exceptional in their genre or format), describing it as a “compulsive read”. A copy from the full review, which can be found on the Booklist website, is included below:
Twenty years after the success of The Alienist (1994) and The Angel of Darkness (1997), Carr once again delivers a high-stakes thriller featuring a new band of clever, determined outcasts. When the bodies of “throwaway teenagers”—or abandoned children—accumulate in upstate New York, police suspect it’s the work of a serial killer. Using Dr. Laszlo Kreizler’s investigative methods, however, criminal psychologists Trajan Jones and Mike Li (with the help of a varied cast, which includes two preteens and a cheetah) soon determine that the staged suicides are too complex for one person. In the same way turn-of-the-century politics permeated Carr’s historical mysteries, today’s controversies inform the conflict in Surrender, New York (or provide “context,” as his protagonists would say). A justice system distorted by post-9/11 paranoia, trigger-happy cops, and self-appointed forensic experts constantly impedes the gang’s efforts, making their frustration palpable. However, the characters’ budding relationships soften the biting commentary, and their genuine desire to find the truth results in a compulsive read as secrets surface layer by layer. With gut-punching twists and the potential for a sequel, this intelligent, timely thriller will be savored by Carr’s fans and new readers alike.
Kirkus Reviews, whose full review of Surrender, New York can be found here, were similarly generous in their praise, describing the novel as:
[a] whodunit that weds leisurely nineteenth-century storytelling with twenty-first-century unpleasantness … Carr’s story poses an utterly modern question: for a career-minded politico, which is worse, a child-neglect scandal or a serial killer on the loose? We get to see both at work, including some nicely nasty mayhem … Carr’s many fans will find this well worth the wait.
Surrender, New York will be released by Random House on August 23. If you are yet to pre-order, you can do so at Amazon or via one of the other retailers listed on the Penguin Random House website.
