Surrender, New York

So, when I started this book I was expecting another book in the Alienisr series, but other than a few “throw away” references to Dr. Kriezler there wasn’t much there. But that didn’t take away from my enjoyment of this book. It was excellent, very well written as usual, and full of emotion and intrigue. I, like Dr. Jones, was also crushed when we both, at seemingly the same time, realized *spoiler alert* about Ambyr’s duplicity. I didn’t think Mr. Carr would do him that dirty, but he did, and wow. I guess every book doesn’t have a completely happy ending, but at least Marcianna and Lucas turned out good in the end.

The author assembles quite a collection of interesting characters, including a rescue cheetah, as he and his colleagues try to resolve a series of teenage suicides staged as murders.

I eagerly awaited Caleb Carr's new book, but have had to put it down. While I love his consistently 19th century storytelling style, it is weirdly jarring with a more contemporary set of characters. I keep expecting time travel (it's possible that happens later in the book, but I doubt it), and the plodding pace, with digressions into local history, is less atmospheric and more just... tangential.

The reason I stopped reading it, however, is that I grew so annoyed with the deep arrogance of the main character that I just didn't care to see the book play out. I assume he will triumph, in the face of all stupid forensic assumptions. I expect he will once again be treated wrong by the overbearing forces of government. And likely will lose show more either his partner or the kid he recruited or his beloved pet to either arrogance or serial killer or aforementioned overbearing forces of government. Meh. I may pick it up later, but I doubt it.

Advanced reader's copy provided by Edelweiss. show less

After finding themselves personae non gratae in New York City where they acted as profilers, Drs Trajan Jones and Mike Li are now teaching criminology in upstate New York. Although they are not much more popular here with law enforcement, they are asked by a local officer to look at the crime scene of a young girl. The girl is a ‘throwaway’ kid and she is not the first dead throwaway to be found recently. The coroner is convinced there is a serial killer at work. Trajan and Mike who have little respect for this particular coroner or coroners in general have another theory. It becomes clear very fast that there are very powerful interests who want their take on the crime swept under the proverbial rug and will stop at nothing to keep show more them from continuing their investigation.

Surrender, New York is the latest by author Caleb Carr and it is, in many ways, a hard one to review. In style, it is very much like his earlier book, The Alienist –despite its 21stc. setting, there is a real 19th c. feel to it – more Dostoevsky than James Patterson. This worked well for the most part although there were times that style and setting seemed to clash - not enough, however, to take me away from the story.

But, more, had I not know that Carr is a military historian, I would have suspected a strong background in history. This is no action-filled heart-pounding thriller. Rather, it moves at a slow pace, full of (at least to me) colourful details of the history of the area, somewhat pedantic but still fascinating explanations of profiling and forensic science even as or perhaps especially as he explains its failures as it is applied within today’s justice system. I enjoyed this a lot. However, I suspect that this slow pace and all of these historical and forensic details will turn a lot of readers off. On the other hand, the pace does pick up and I was completely glued to the page for last third of the book.

Putting pacing aside, Surrender, New York is a very-well plotted tale with plenty of twists and a very unusual premise – the problem of throwaway kids is more of a hot issue at least for powerful politicos trying to stay in power than the activities of a serial killer. The characters are very well-drawn especially Trajan. I found his cheetah somewhat distracting at first but I liked that Carr integrated her into the story as a three-dimensional character in her own right while using her to bring attention to the fact that so many of them are being taken out of the wild to be used and abused in zoos and as exotic pets that they reaching extinction level.

Judging from other reviews I have read about this book, I may be in the minority here but I really enjoyed it but would recommend it with caution – if you’re looking for a fast furious thriller, look elsewhere. But, if you enjoy a good literary mystery with an interesting story and lots of twists as well as historical and forensic diversions, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this book inexchange for an honest review show less

Trajan Jones, a forensic psychologist and psychiatrist, and his partner Mike Li, a criminal scientist, have been driven out of New York City by the powers that be when they expose the fallacies of popular “forensic science,” that stuff that TV shows like “CSI” spout and that are a bane to real criminal trials in today’s world. Given a couple of e-teaching spots at a SUNY campus not far from the rural landscape, they relocate to Jones’ Great-Aunt Clarissa’s property, where local police bring them into the investigation of first one, and then more, apparent murders of young teenagers. As they begin looking into the cases, a young local teen and his older sister/warder come into the picture, part of the epidemic of show more “throwaway kids” in New York, whose parents have simply disappeared, leaving the children behind. But there’s more going on here than meets the eye, and Jones’ relationship with a rescued, FIV cheetah is not the oddest part of the case…..I only scratch the surface in the above outline of this dense, complex novel, and I don’t want to say much about it other than that it expresses how difficult the understanding of deep realities in our human lives can be, even for those trained in understanding. I had difficulty with the cheetah part until late in the story and only came to fully agree with it in the author’s notes at the end of the book; that said, Marcianna is a wonderful creature! Deeply disturbing about human tragedy, but ultimately affirming in human compassion; recommended! show less

This is one of those rare occasions when the book is so bad it becomes awesome again.

I find it hard to recount my thoughts on this one - you had to be there! All the characters are wacky quirk-laden caricatures. Every single character is exceptional in some way, it's like the mutant academy. It's easy to make characters memorable this way: give one a fake leg, the other an eyepatch, pink hair, a blue handgun, a pet cheetah, idiot savant knowledge of guns etc. and I dare you to guess which ones are real examples.

The plot is equally over the top. The main character complains about CSI TV series several times throughout the book and I'm genuinely curious if the author is doing this as a tongue in cheek joke or is completely show more un-self-aware.

But in the end it's a fun kind of stupid. show less

OK, I realize Caleb Carr's newest novel, 'Surrender, New York', is hot and highly praised. However, 70 pages in I had to ditch it. The incongruity between writing style and content is just too great to resolve for my tiny brain.

'Surrender...' is written in an idiosyncratic style that wouldn't be out of place in the mid-1800's, except that the story is contemporary and covers ground that's fresh and up-to-date. I don't have a problem with idiosyncratic writers (Delillo and Vonnegut are favorites), and I certainly don't have an issue with a 'period' style (Cormac McCarthy and Alan Furst are excellent at it), but when the author writes about 21st century issues with a 19th century hand, I can't take it.

I'm quite sure this is an excellent show more novel and readers with a greater tolerance than I will be rewarded by sticking it out, but wading through tons of fluff to get to the nugget of a story isn't very attractive to me. show less