Helpful Score: 5
A fascinating and well researched historical novel that uses Freud's only visit to America as the catalyst for a murder mystery. There are enough twists and turns to keep you guessing right to the end who did it and how. Fans of psychology and fans of mysteries will find enough appealing aspects to keep them riveted from page to page.
Helpful Score: 3
An exciting thriller that keeps you gripped til the very end with it's clever twists and turns. Not too focused on Freud that its offputting. Clever and skilfull.
Helpful Score: 2
A page turner of a murder mystery with the most unusual of "detectives". Set in NYC in 1909 it takes place when Freud visited NYC in 1909 with his disciple Carl Jung. What happened led to Freud vowing never to return to the U.S. and decribing Americans as savages!
Helpful Score: 1
This book was fantastic.
It is a very well-researched historical thriller. It perfectly balanced the facts surrounding Freud and Jung's visit to America with the fiction of a complex and mysterious murder.
This book kept me on my toes the entire time and left me guessing until the very end. Rubenfeld captured the essence of turn-of-the-century New York, the sensation and skepticism surrounding Freud's revolutionary theories, and the spirit of the detectives and victims as they wade through layers of truth and deception.
Freud and his theories are present but they are not overwhelming. This book was in the same family as Caleb Carr's 'The Alienist' and managed to pull off a really great story in a third of the pages. I consider this book to be a delightful must-read for fans of murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and historical fiction. It is an all-around enjoyable reading experience.
It is a very well-researched historical thriller. It perfectly balanced the facts surrounding Freud and Jung's visit to America with the fiction of a complex and mysterious murder.
This book kept me on my toes the entire time and left me guessing until the very end. Rubenfeld captured the essence of turn-of-the-century New York, the sensation and skepticism surrounding Freud's revolutionary theories, and the spirit of the detectives and victims as they wade through layers of truth and deception.
Freud and his theories are present but they are not overwhelming. This book was in the same family as Caleb Carr's 'The Alienist' and managed to pull off a really great story in a third of the pages. I consider this book to be a delightful must-read for fans of murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and historical fiction. It is an all-around enjoyable reading experience.
Excellent period thriller. Mr. Rubenfeld certainly did his background homework of the early 1900's and this book held my interest from beginning to end. Freud is one of the main characters, so there are references to sexual themes. But, Mr. Rubenfeld did not dwell on graphic sexual descriptions and he wrote a very well done page-turner. I'll certainly be on the look-out for his next work of fiction.
Although I don't read much historical fiction, I'm trying to do so more often. This book reminded me of Criminal Minds meets Sherlock Holmes. The Freudian views, as said in other reviews were not overwhelming, but enough to keep it interesting. As the focus is on a murder mystery, at the same time it gives a fact-based glimpse of Freud's FIRST and ONLY visit to America. The book did seem about 50-100pages too long, but it kept my interest nontheless. Well written and researched!
A little far-fetched, but interesting period piece regarding NYC.
Well written and well researched (writer is a prof with experience in psychology history).Book is a fictional take off on actual visit to the US by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. They and a young follower get embroiled in a series of murders/assaults on beautiful young women. This book is fascinating for its insights into early psychology, the differences between Jung and Freud as well as early 1900's NYC society. A good intelligent mystery read.
well written and great plot
Best historical novel I have ever read. You will not want to put it down.
Marvelous fiction based on an ingenious realighnment of historical fact. In my opinion this book deserves far more aclaim than it has thus far recieved.
THE INTERPRETATAION OF MURDER by Jed Rubenfeld: It is August 1909 as Sigmund Freud disembarks from the steamship George Washington, accompanied by Carl Jung, his rival and protégé. One young lady is dead -- whipped, mutilated, and strangled and rebellious heiress Nora Acton barely escapes the same fate. Afterwards Nora can recall nothing of her attack. So Dr. Stratham Younger, Americas most committed Freudian analyst, calls in his idol, the Master himself, to guide him through the challenges of analyzing this high-spirited young woman whose family past has been as complicated as his own. A most different and unusual approach to a mystery.
