Aviva Kagan was just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish life in Brooklyn for a fling with a smiling college boy from Florida-and then disappeared. Twenty-three years later, the child she walked away from is a NYC tabloid reporter named Rebekah Roberts. And Rebekah isn't sure she wants her mother back in her life.
But when a man from the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Roseville, N.Y. contacts Rebekah about his young wife's mysterious death, she is drawn back into Aviva's world. Pessie Goldin's body was found in her bathtub, and while her parents want to believe it was an accident, her husband is certain she was murdered.
Once she starts poking around, Rebekah encounters a whole society of people who have wandered "off the path" of ultra-Orthodox Judaism - just like her mother. But some went with dark secrets, and rage at the insular community they left behind.
In the sequel to her Edgar Award finalist Invisible City , Julia Dahl has created a taut mystery that is both a window into a secretive culture and an exploration of the demons we inherit.
**
Review
βA treat...Strong, blunt prose.β β The New York Times Book Review
βBringing together the hyenas of tabloid journalism with the secretive, inwardly focused, self-protecting religious Jews, Dahl manages to demonize and humanize both, while delivering a riveting story.β β The Boston Globe
βFast-paced, suspenseful...rises above the crime novel genre in its unusual psychological, spiritual and sociological dimensions, entering a world unfamiliar to most people.β β The Washington Post
β Invisible City is an absolutely crackling, unputdownable mystery told by a narrator with one big, booming voice. I loved it.β β Gillian Flynn
β[An] impressive debut...Dahl's convincing dialogue and perfect pacing make for a real page-turner. And her storytelling skills illuminate the intriguing worlds of the tabloid press, Hasidism, the NYPD, and Brooklyn's 20-somethings-as well as the fragile boundaries of family, religion, and life itself.β β Publishers Weekly (starred review)
About the Author
JULIA DAHL is a journalist specializing in crime and criminal justice. Her first novel, Invisible City , was named one of the Boston Globe 's Best Books of 2014 and was a finalist for an Edgar Award and a Mary Higgins Clark Award. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. and writes for CBSNews.com.