Invisible City

Starred review from February 24, 2014
The secretive society of Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jews provides the backdrop for Dahl’s impressive debut. Rebekah Roberts, a reporter for a New York tabloid, covers the murder of Rivka Mendelssohn, whose naked body has been found clenched in the teeth of an excavator in a Brooklyn scrap yard, whose owner, Aron Mendelssohn, a prominent Hasidic leader, happens to be the victim’s husband. As Rebekah questions the black-clad women ruled by men and God, she opens wounds left by just such a woman: her own mother, who abandoned her at birth to return to her Hasidic roots. Rebekah’s Jewishness gains her access. Because the police, for reasons of their own, are turning a blind eye on the case means she is the only one looking for answers. 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. Agent: Stephanie Rostan, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency.

April 1, 2014
Journalist Dahl's debut novel escorts readers into the closed-off world of Hasidic Jews in the aftermath of a homicide. Rebekah moves to New York after finishing college, determined to become a newspaper reporter; in a declining publishing industry, all she can find is a job as a stringer for a tabloid featuring the city's seamier side. But she soon has her teeth in a great story, one that seems tailor-made for her. When a Hasidic woman's nude body is found in a scrapyard on one of the coldest days of the year, Rebekah immerses herself in a world that seems foreign to her--even though her mother was born into it before briefly abandoning her religious background and having Rebekah with her non-Jewish boyfriend. The case stirs up resentment in Rebekah because her mother, Aviva, abandoned her as an infant to return to the Hasidic world. As Rebekah walks the same streets her mother may be walking, she finds herself drawn into the insular lives of Hasidic women. She also comes across a surprise in the form of Saul, a Hasidic police detective, who's brought in to help question people connected to the victim. It turns out that Saul also knew Rebekah's mother. As Rebekah wades deeper into her mother's world, she finds both brutal truths and a society that eschews outsiders. Dahl, whose mother is Jewish, does a good job of exploring Rebekah's dilemma but stumbles with the occasional insertion of unnecessary, and sometimes-jarring, vulgar language or a sexual act into the plot. But when she sticks to exploring both Hasidic life and the world of tabloid journalism, Dahl scores a solid series of home runs. A fascinating portrayal of a young woman coming to terms with her heritage while negotiating an unknown world.

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May 15, 2014

Rebekah Roberts moved to New York City in the hope of covering important stories as a journalist, but she also wanted to be closer to the mother who abandoned her shortly after she was born to return to her Hasidic Jewish community. When Rebekah is tasked with reporting on the murder of a Hasidic woman, she begins to learn more about the community and how in some respects it exists as a sovereign state within the city. And the NYPD is happy to oblige the community's customs, including not performing an autopsy on the victim, which might result in the murder remaining unsolved. Seeking the truth she was never afforded as a child, Rebekah quickly learns she is not welcome in this ultra-orthodox world as she delves deeper into the community and the crime. VERDICT In her gripping debut mystery, veteran journalist Dahl creates an intriguing protagonist seeking justice for a victim's family as well as the truth about her own origins. [Library marketing; Minotaur First Edition Selection.]--Caitlin Bronner, MLIS, New York

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2014
For 23-year-old Rebekah Roberts, a stringer for the New York Tribune, a story becomes uncomfortably personal as she seeks to get at the truth. The discovery of the naked body of Hasidic Jew Rivka Mendelssohn, found in a scrap yard owned by her well-to-do husband, brings to mind the anger and sorrow Rebekah feels toward her own mother, a Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn who took off when Rebekah was an infant. Her feelings are intensified when Saul Katz, NYPD liaison with the Hasidic community, shocks Rebekah by telling her that she looks just like her mother. As Katz provides Rebekah with inside information and urges her to pursue what is essentially the cover-up of a murder in the closed Hasidic community, she learns that her Jewish heritage goes only so far in her understanding of what she's investigating. This novel is particularly notable for its combination of a skillfully wrought, increasingly suspenseful mystery populated by well-drawn characters and a deeply sympathetic understanding of a contemporary culture that remains insular for its own understandable reasons. Journalist Dahl's debut sets a high bar.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)