Caleb Carr’s “The Alienist” is historical fiction meets psychological thriller. Following John Schuyler Moore, a journalist for the New York Times, and his unlikely band of detective and psychologist friends’ secret search, overseen by then Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, for a serial killer.

The descriptions of the victims are graphic, but it paints a perfect image of the intensity and morbidity of the culprit. Much more intense than the unsolved “Black Dahlia” case of Hollywood in 1947, “The Alienist” follows how Dr. Laszlo Kreizler helped guide Mr. Moore, two detective sergeants, the Isaacson brothers, and a police department secretary, Ms. Sara Howard to think like the serial killer to decide just who and why said killer was terrorizing the immigrant community’s young male prostitutes.

I give this book 5/5 stars. I cannot wait to watch the TNT television series.