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.

The Guilty (Will Robie #4)

The Guilty by David Baldacci is the fourth book in his Will Robie series about a CIA assassin.

Will Robie is one of the best snipers the CIA has in its secret black book. He has been on numerous assignments and has pulled them off professionally. But on his latest mission something goes wrong and an innocent is killed along with his target.

When Robie gets word that his father is on trial for murder, his first response is to try to re-bury the past. But after a fail attempt at work, he decides to head to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi to the town of Cantrell - a town he left 22 years ago with no intention of ever returning.

After some information hunting - like pulling teeth to get the locals to talk to someone who left - he puts together that his dad is accused of killing a man who was acquitted of murder himself. Robie will get to the bottom of what happened, but unlike his day job, the target is undefined.

Baldacci is a great writer of suspense and mystery novels. Will Robie is a great character who can take care of himself even within the twists and turns of this plot. Great series for fans of good books!

Baldacci, David. (2015). The Guilty. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

The Paying Guests

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters is an historical crime novel set in 1922 London.

The widow Mrs. Wray and her adult daughter Frances find themselves in financial trouble after Mr. Wray passes away. It is not seemly for women of their class to work, so they have decided to take in lodgers. Most of the upstairs of the house has been converted into a suite of rooms - bedroom, parlor and kitchen - to accommodate the young married couple about to move in.

Lilian and Leonard Barber are moving away from his parent's house into their own space. Leonard, as part of the clerk class that will become the emerging middle class, works for an insurance house. Lilian spends her time decorating their rooms with an eclectic mix of items from cultures around the world.

Though Frances thinks of the Barbers merely as a source of income, an unlikely friendship forms between Frances and Lilian. A bond grows as they spend more time together - a bond that will lead to unexpected consequences.

Waters is a masterful story teller. Her historical fiction takes readers back in time in the way of few other writers. Start reading one of her books today - you will be hooked.

Waters, Sarah. (2014). The Paying Guests. New York: Riverhead Books.

The Murder of the Century

The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age of Crime that Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins is a narrative nonfiction look at a grisly murder in 1897 that turned New York City into chaos and allowed a change of guard in the newspaper world.

In June of 1897, parts of a body are found floating in the Hudson followed by other parts from the same body turning up in Harlem. Identifying the body, without its head, became the next order of business. Put together painstakingly due to the science available in that time period, the newspapers (and to less a degree, the police) build a case for no only who the murdered man was, but who killed him.

At the time, the largest circulating newspaper in New York was Joseph Pulitzer's World battled with the new Journal owned by William Randolph Hearst. Hearst went so far as to hire a team of detectives to search for clues. And the murder gave them the canvas to create a new style of journalism - the tabloid. News with more story than fact.

Collins has done extensive research of the time period and collected many sides to the story of the murder of the century. Though I do not usually read true crime novels, this is more of a complex look at our history using the lens of the one murder.

Collins, Paul. (2011). Murder of the Century. New York: Broadway Paperbacks.