...an addictive contemporary crime procedural stuffed with observations on the manipulations of science and the particular societal ills of the moment ... Carr writes with a style full of depth and description. He never uses one sentence when there is room for two. The book weighs in at a dense 600 pages, which requires more dedication than is usual for a crime novel. But Carr’s work has never been for the book-a-day reader ... This is a novel you set time aside for. It is charming and eloquent between the horrors it captures.
Mr. Carr conjures with admirable ease and verve all manner of vivid characters: the beautiful young blind woman who captures Dr. Jones’s heart; her obscenity-spewing young brother, whom Jones and Li use as their Baker Street Irregular; and dozens of allies, enemies, villains, relatives and victims. Skills and thrills are more abundant than plausibility. For maximum enjoyment: surrender, reader.
I loved The Alienist, so it pains me to write that Carr’s Surrender, New York, despite tackling these same general themes in a contemporary setting, has little suspense and few thrills. I blame Carr’s narrator. Dr. Trajan Jones, a profiler walking in the alienist’s intellectual footsteps, is unlikable (not in any good way). His dialogue is pedantic and his point of view is thick with righteous indignation.
...is [forensic science] really as accurate and efficient as we’d like to believe? Caleb Carr’s latest crime fiction novel, Surrender, New York shines a critical light on that notion and manages to make a few other powerful statements along the way ... L.T. and Mike undoubtedly give off that Sherlock and Watson vibe, being eccentric and loyal with every page that’s turned. Their chemistry is a strong foundation for the novel ... Mr. Carr keeps a steady momentum of excitement throughout, only being slowed down by the occasional in-depth description or historical factoid ... It is quite graphic, but if you’re able to stomach such heavy material then you’re rewarded with a chilling and suspenseful education on several subjects.
The primary mark against Surrender, New York would be Mr. Carr’s tendency to sometimes lean on conventionality; a few of his plot twists are a little too telegraphed and perfect, seeming to come right out of the aforementioned prime-time shows that he lambastes on several occasions.
Its good parts justify its bad parts, and its bad parts are awful enough that they’re never boring. Not uninteresting lodgings, if you can handle a little unpredictability.
