The Alienist by Caleb Carr

Title:  The Alienist
Author:  Caleb Carr
Publisher:  Bantam Books
Date:  1994
Pages:  597
Source:  Purchased
ISBN: 0533572997

The Alienist takes you into the dark, sleezy life of New York City during the late 1800's.  This dark world was kept secret in the 1800's and you rarely hear about it today.  But, there is no doubt that it existed and that life was scary and difficult for the people that lived in this dark world.  In The Alienist, there is a serial killer wandering through this dark world and he is targeting young boys.  But, not just any boys, he is focused on boys that are selling their bodies to survive.  The government and the police are ignoring the killings.  They do not want the public to know this part of NYC even exists, so they just sit back and hope that it will go away.
But, not everyone is content to just sit back and ignore these killings.  After all the victims are children. No matter what type of life they are living, they deserve protection from this evil killer. There is an Alienist in the city that wants the killer stopped.  His name is Kreizler and he is what today is known as a Psychologist.  Kreizler forms a group  of friends to try and stop this killer.  The group initially consists of Moore who is a New York Times Reporter and Sarah who is a Secretary at the Police Department.  The little group eventually expands to include Kreizlers servants and a couple of ex Police Officers. This group will take you into the belly of this dark world and it is sometimes very graphic because when this killer kills a victim, it is very gruesome and even worse because his victims are children.
Kriezler feels sure that the killer is not insane. But, he needs to meet the killer and talk with him before deciding if he is insane or not. He believes that something occured in the killers childhood that made him this way.  Therefore, Kreizler is driven to find him so that he can make an effort to answer this age old question.  Is this killer insane or just evil?

"Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, another part  (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our mind." William James, The Principles of Psychology

Read more » // No comments

This Bird Flew Away by Lynda M. Martin Book Tour

Lynda M. Martin, author of This Bird Flew Away

Lynda was born in Dunfirmline, Scotland in 1953, emigrated to Canada with her parents as a young girl. She grew up on the vast prairies of Western Canada, and loved the open wide spaces of that wild land. She was educated in Medicine Hat, Alberta, a town in the southeast corner of that province, and spent most of her time riding horses, barrel racing and hanging around rodeos and cowboys.

In 1968, the product of a troubled youth and a dysfunctional family, she found herself on her own at the age of fifteen, two thousand miles from her home, and knows first hand the dangers facing girls on our streets and the predators that prey on them. She was one of the lucky ones. She survived.

Later in life, she went east to Montreal for her education, graduating from the University of Montreal with a degree in Business Administration, which provided a fine income, but little in the way of personal satisfaction. Still in her twenties, she became a volunteer with social services to work with troubled teen-aged girls, and took every course the social agencies offered.

Title: The Bird flew Away
Author:  Lynda M. Martin
Publisher:  Black Rose Writing
Date:  27 January 2011
Pages:  312
Source:  Nurture Book Team
Pages:  312

My Review:
I was interested in reading this book because I am a Psychology student with a huge interest in Child Psychology.  I felt like this book might depict real life situations that so many children are living with everyday.  I was right about that, as it is very realistic with such real characters that you are likely to  forget that it is just a story and the characters are ficticious. Lynda martin has written a wonderful story that will knock your socks off!

This book was awesome!! Seriously, it was hard to put down.  Bria, the main character, will take you on a journey that is so full of emotion that it reaches out and grabs you and does  not let go until the very end. Unfortunately, there are way too many Bria's in this world and sadly that makes this story all the more compelling.  She is confronted with things that no child should ever have to face and at times the things she has to deal with are just gut wrenching.  Thank goodness for Jack! He is her saviour! I only wish there were more like him in the world. 

Read more » // 2 comments