Part 1, Perception: Chapters 1-3 Summary

Caleb Carr is a military and diplomatic historian who was previously a writer of historical non-fiction who felt his subjects were too extreme to make a decent living. Fascinated with Theodore Roosevelt, Carr chose a time period for his first fictional work that would include a short period of time during which Roosevelt was commissioner of police in New York City.

In Chapter 1, John Schuyler Moore has lunch with his good friend, Lazlo Kreizler, after the funeral of their good friend Theodore Roosevelt. At lunch, the two men think of their good friend, a man who was so full of life until the recent death of his son, Quentin. At this lunch, Moore thinks of the investigation he, Kreizler, and Roosevelt worked together, leading him to recall that investigation more than twenty years previously that began March...