20 February 2018

Conviction (Rebekah Roberts #3)


Conviction by Julia Dahl is the conclusion to her trilogy featuring Rebekah Roberts, a crime reporter living in Brooklyn. She works at a tabloid but gained some esteem when publishing an article with the Center on Crime, Culture and Media detailing the killing of an Orthodox Jewish woman in Gowanus.

Between chasing stories assigned to her, Rebekah attends a lunch for the Center, where she meets other writers they have worked with, including a woman who runs a homicide blog. She lists all deaths in the city, many of which are ignored by the press. People claiming to have been wrongly convicted of a crime have been sending letters to the blog. An in one of those letters, Rebekah finds her next big story.

In July of 1992 there was a triple homicide for which a teen foster son was convicted. After looking through the files, Rebekah sees little evidence linked to DeShawn Perkins, the teen serving a life sentence for the murder of his foster parents and foster sister. Rebekah’s investigation will open a past that a few want to remain hidden, as she is more and more convinced of DeShawn’s innocence.

Dahl has created a great, real and flawed character, in Rebekah Roberts. Her mysteries are wonderfully peppered with clues and revealed, at times, with nail-biting prose. This series also highlights Brooklyn and the Orthodox Jewish communities here. Read them!

Dahl, Julia. (2017). Conviction. New York: Minotaur.

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