In Old New York
I didn't read The Alienist by Caleb Carr, but I picked up The Angel of Darkness at a bargain table. I enjoyed most of it on its on terms--I immediately put aside my amusement that this 1897 investigative team includes a highly liberated woman, a soft-spoken giant of a black man they all treat with great respect, two Jews, and later a Filipino pygmy along with its psychiatric profiler, reformed street kid, and crime reporter--but as it goes on it just gets more ludicrous, especially in its resolution. It doesn't help that at times reading this feels like watching The Love Boat for all the famous people our protagonists just happen to know or run into. Sara is a personal friend of suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton! Hey, they're arguing a case against Clarence Darrow! They ask Theodore Roosevelt, a personal friend from The Alienist, to help get their asses out of a sling! Still, it provides an interesting picture of a nearly lawless and far rougher yet smaller and more pastoral New York City.