They Shall See God

April 29, 2002
The Christian market sorely needs more quality suspense novels, and Dickson's excellent offering makes a solid contribution to the genre. Rabbi Ruth Gold and lapsed Protestant Kate Flint share a hideous legacy from their childhood: together they stumbled upon a murder scene, then helped incarcerate the man they saw holding a knife by the victim. Now he's been released after 25 years in prison, and a bizarre string of events mimicking stories from the biblical book of Genesis unfolds in present-day New Orleans. Gold's boyfriend is poisoned with cyanide after eating an apple in her living room, a brother is tricked into killing his brother and wild animals are released from the zoo to roam the city. Meanwhile, tension escalates between Gold's Jewish congregation and a group of Christian fanatics who picket the temple and badger the Jewish people to turn to Jesus. The multiple points of view give the novel a disjointed feel, and the book's intended CBA audience might have benefited from a glossary of the Jewish terms sprinkled showily throughout ("Instead of rounding up a minyan to say kaddish, I was wondering if you'd come to Mama's grave and light a yahrzeit
candle with me and say shehecheyanu?"). However, the writing is original, with unexpected touches of humor, and contains enough plot twists to keep the reader guessing until the final pages. Although this is a highly entertaining nail-biter, one of the novel's significant accomplishments is its potential to promote greater understanding between people of both faiths.

June 1, 2002
As in Nancy Mehl's Graven Images, young children here witness the aftermath of a murder, and their testimony sentences a man to jail. Some 25 years later, the steamy heat of New Orleans explodes with a new series of murders seemingly tied to the release of Solomon Cantor from prison. Ruth Gold and Kate Flint, whose testimony helped convict Cantor, meet again for the first time in years as they fear he is responsible for the death of Ruth's boyfriend and an attempted poisoning at Kate's house. Working together to save their families in an atmosphere of renewed anti-Semitism, the women also learn about each other's faith Ruth is a rabbi, and Kate is a Christian. Dickson (Every Hidden Thing) explores differences in faith and irrational hatred of those differences in a sensitive yet challenging manner. Suitable for all collections.

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2002
\deflang1033\pard\plain\f3\fs24 Dickson turns in a somewhat unusual effort with \plain\f3\fs24" They Shall See \plain\f3\fs24 God. Trading upon the oft-discussed harmony of views between Jews and Evangelicals, he devises a mystery that seems to point to the death of a harmless old Jew by Christian hands--a sort of hate crime. But the mystery goes deeper--back to something that happened to Rabbi Ruth Gold and her estranged friend, Kate Flint, a Christian, when they were seven. A good man was wrongfully imprisoned because of their testimony, and they almost wrong him again upon his release from prison. Adding to Dickson's mostly winning effort is his New Orleans setting and appreciation for its Jewish heritage. Detracting is his villain, Orvis Newton, so disturbed a personality that he belongs in a comic book. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)