An interesting novel from the author of THE ALIENIST.
SURRENDER, NEW YORK has a nice call-back to THE ALIENIST, but is set in contemporary(ish) New York State. It's a substantial read, perhaps a shade longer than it had to be, but Carr offers readers a couple of interesting and engaging protagonists (albeit, one that is quite reminiscent of the Alienist).

I enjoyed this, but not as much as THE ALIENIST. (I haven't had a chance to read THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS, yet.)

I wanted to love this book but to be honest, I couldn't even finish it. My all time favorite book is The Alienist and I was so excited when I was given the chance to review Caleb Carr's latest release. I struggled to get into the story and the writing didn't even seem as if it was by the same author. Sadly, I didn't feel that it was worth the time investment and moved on. Sorry but I cannot recommend this one.

Excellent book. Good plot. It has a loose tie in with the author's preview book, The Alienist. In some respect this could be considered a modern version of that earlier work.

I did not like this book, it wasn't up to Carr's standards, and not sure why it was published. It was contemorary, and Carr's best feature, are his history and characters of a long gone era. Not this one, it's just boring and never ending. Do not recommend if you like Carr's other books!

Dr. Trajan Jones spent many years working for the NYPD as a criminal psychologist. Dr. Mike Li is an expert in trace evidence and worked closely with Jones on many of the same cases. Both were known for their outspoken opinions against the use of forensics as key evidence in a case. Their unpopular views eventually made it necessary for them to retreat from the city. Now the two of them spend their days using their respective expertise to teach online university courses from the comforts of Trajan’s family farm in Surrender, NY.

When the local sheriff pays Jones a visit, he has an inkling that their peaceful days of teaching are about to run into a snag. Sure enough, the sheriff wants to elicit his opinion on the local murder of a young girl. Her murder is part of what they have pegged as a series of murders but their investigation has gone nowhere. Having tangled with difficulties before, Jones and Li are willing to rock the boat to see what comes out from underneath it. What surfaces is a not just a local murder but an ongoing national crisis, one that shows us just how much the country is unraveling around its edges.

I was excited to read this release by Caleb Carr as I enjoyed the Laszlo Kreizler books a lot. My initial excitement waned right away as the book got off to a slow start. The main problem I had was the author’s use of incessant run-on sentences. I don’t remember this having been a problem in his other books. Once I got past my issue with this, my perseverance paid off in the form of gripping characterizations and edgy suspense. Turns out I was not about to put this book down! I really liked the crime-solving anti-hero team Mr. Carr put together here with the two docs, a smart mouth kid and the docs’ students. Each character had their unique set of problems making them more human. Dr. Jones relationship with Marcianna the cheetah was a great addition to his character’s emotional depth. And imagine my joy when I found out that Trajan Jones is also the world’s leading expert on Mr. Carr’s other great fictional character, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler! IMHO, Trajan Jones is more complicated than Laszlo Kreisler, but isn’t that true of all of us in the modern world compared to a century ago?

I want to thank the publisher (Random House Publishing) for providing me with the ARC through NetGalley for an honest review.

Surrender, New York by Caleb Carr is part crime thriller and part social commentary and mostly a tedious lecture on the wrongs of our criminal justice system and the people who work within it. In that part it is too bad because it could have been so much better and with the Author's prior work, better is to be expected.

"...The most apparent points of interest and alarm concerning the account that Pete Steinbrecher gave us during the drive back to Shiloh concerning cases similar to Shelby Capamagio's were not the numbers involved (two additional children of about Shelby's age, a boy and a girl, found dead in Burgoyne County during the past several weeks), nor even the eerily similar fact that both had also been apparent murders in remote locations. No, eerier still was the fact that Mike and I felt sure, after hearing the details from Pete, that both death scenes had been staged...."

Dr. Trajan Jones, a criminal psychologist recently ran out of New York under a cloud of suspicion and the leading expert on the life and work of Dr. Laszlo Kreizler; finds himself drawn into a mystery that will put him at odds with the very bureaucracy that he fought in New York. Residing on his family's estate in the small town of Surrender, New York with his friend and colleague, Dr. Micheal Li; Jones finds himself called in to investigate the death of several young boys and girls. The young people are found gruesomely murdered and law enforcement officials are quick to blame a serial killer. But Jones and Li begin to suspect that this is something even bigger. For all the children share a trait, they are what is known as throwaway kids. Teenagers who are abandoned by their parents and then by the very system that is set up to protect them.

As Jones and Li dig deeper into the mystery, they find themselves under attack from various agencies and a shadowy agency that they cannot quite figure out. But is intent on stopping them. Now they must not only investigate the killings but protect themselves and the next victim from becoming another dead throwaway kid.

Surrender, New York reminds us of one very simple truth. There was a reason that Watson narrated the stories and not Holmes. Because ten minutes of being condescended to and lectured by the like of Holmes and no one would have gone further in any of the stories. Surrender, New York suffers from an insufferable main character whose own sense of superiority makes him hard to connect to in anyway that would make a reader care about the story itself.

His sidekick, Michael Li, does not make up for this and so as a team, brilliant that they maybe; Jones and Li actually detract from what could have been a really good book.

The concept of throwaway kids is new to me. Children who are not homeless, who did not runaway, but are abandoned by their parents just the same. It is the parents that have runaway. One day they are there and the next, gone. A situation that the foster care system seems unprepared to deal with.

There is a good crime thriller. But it gets broken down by the monotone dialogue and cloud of politics that the author seems obsessed with railing about. Instead what we have is a sermon of social injustice with unfunny moments of bad jokes and characters so weak that they are not to be taken seriously.

I am not even mentioning the poorly scripted romance that is as unbelievable as it is uncomfortable.

I should have passed on this on.

The ARC of this book was, truthfully, one of the worst I've ever read. I have been a fan of Carr's since The Alienist, but have found his work since then to be progressively worse and worse. The writing here was so bloated and full of nonsense like "We entered a quiet chapel of dreary tragedy, centered on a nave of heartbreak." And I expect an author of Carr's caliber to avoid using the work "fuck" on pretty much every page. The plot seemed really far-fetched, too. Why would NYS cover up the disappearance of children from rural areas? Hell, they can't even keep the thruway paved. I couldn't even finish the ARC because I was so frustrated with it. However, I have heard from others that the finished product was much better, so I'll give it another go.

Reviewed 8/3/16 See link below

I am a big fan of Caleb Carr and this novel did not disappoint. Always historically accurate with enough mystery and tension in the plot to keep the reader wanting more.

I will be honest, I wanted another Alienist, which is not a practical way to go about reading a new book. I think the issues brought up in here were important, and need to be discussed, although perhaps not in this way, in a book this long. I say this only because my mind began to wander off topic as I read.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28952751-surrender-new-york