I haven't finished all of The Alienist on Netflix yet, and am still enjoying it enough, but I have realised what its style, which is often delivering what feels like a mini history lesson on New York in 1895, was reminding me of.
It's exactly the style of most of Michael Crichton's books: not so great on characterisation; some rather stilted dialogue at times; but chock full of what is clearly the results of lots of scene setting research by the author. That was a lot of the pleasure of his books, learning some new esoteric stuff in fictional form. I would presume the book the show is based on must read similarly to Crichton.
One of the key things in the show is Teddy Roosevelt as a young-ish New York Police Commissioner - a job I never knew he had. (Although, truth be told, I know next to nothing about him.) This article gives a short account of his time in that job, and it sounds as if it was indeed fraught with conflict with the old guard in the police force, as it is in the TV show.
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