BONUS Categories: Historical fiction, Story with a television adaptation
I began watching the series in January on TNT. I loved the historical and forensic aspects of the series, but grew impatient to find out how it would all turn out. The book is written as though it were a memoir written in 1919 about a case that took place in 1896, by John Moore, a reporter for The New York Times. A serial killer had been killing boys in New York City, and the police department did little until the new commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt (who would later become U.S. president) asked Dr. Lazlo Kreizler to apply new scientific methods to help solve the case. Dr. Kreizler convinces Roosevelt that he must be allowed to run his own investigation, and he gathers his team. Kreizler and Moore are helped by Sara Howard (the first woman to be hired by the NYC police department) and Marcus and Lucius Isaacson (two Jewish brothers hired to replace corrupt police officers fired by Roosevelt). Kreizler's servants, Stevie Taggert and Cyrus Montrose, also prove valuable in getting the team around New York City and assisting in stakeouts.
The book is slightly different from the series, but in all the best ways. The interactions between the characters are even more complex in the book than in the series, and the background for the forensic methods is explained in more detail. Some of the details of the characters has been changed slightly, and the suspect's background appears to be different as well. As I've only seen the first six episodes, I can't tell yet how the TV series will turn out.
The author, Caleb Carr, was already established as a non-fiction writer before publication of this novel. He wrote an afterword of a hoax he'd had to pull on his agent and editor to get them to agree to let him make the switch to fiction.
No comments:
Post a Comment