10 May 2014

Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)

Invisible City by Julia Dahl is the first book in her Rebekah Roberts mystery series about a New York journalist. Dahl has been a reporter and editor in print and television. This is her first novel.

Rebekah Roberts is a stringer for the New York Tribune and is sent wherever the paper needs a journalist in the five boroughs. Her latest assignment will be her most important story - one she will not let go after one day's reporting and will change the way she looks at her own story.

When the body of a woman is found in a Gowanus scrap yard, Roberts is there to report what she sees. But when the woman turns out to be Jewish, the police allow the Hasidic community to take the body. Roberts is sent into a world she has often wondered about but never visited. Her past and her current assignment collide while Roberts tries to find a killer the NYPD does not seem to want to find.

When Rebekah Roberts was very small, her mother left her father to return to the Orthodox community. Rebekah has been mad at the mother she does not remember, but this case could give her insight into why her mother left. Maybe as an adult she will be able to understand better why her mother abandoned her.

Combining a mystery with a great character, Dahl has started a series readers will devour. Her writing is excellent, her ability to describe an event or setting honed in years of award-winning journalism, and her plot is one that will draw fans of more than just mysteries. Invisible City is an excellent start to a series readers wait impatiently to continue.

Dahl, Julia. (2014). Invisible City. New York: Minotaur.

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