SOURCE: "Victorian Vice," in Vanity Fair, Vol. 57, No. 4, April, 1994, p. 108.

[An American novelist, Ellis is best known for such novels as Less than Zero (1985) and American Psycho (1990). In the review below, he provides a mixed assessment of The Alienist.]

Manhattan, 1896. A serial killer haunts the city, mutilating boy prostitutes. In order to solve the case, Theodore Roosevelt, as New York City's police commissioner, brings together John Moore, a police reporter for The New York Times, Sara Howard, a police secretary, and Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, an old school chum who is now a brilliant "alienist" (in the 19th century, the mentally ill were called "alienated," and psychologists were thus labeled "alienists"), whose theories on child-parent relations pre-date Freud and provide insight into the mind of The Alienist's warped monster-cannibal.

What makes this novel so potentially fascinating is that these three are not detectives, and in the face of...