Invisible City: A Novel (Rebekah Roberts Novels) Hardcover – May 6, 2014

Rebekah Roberts moved to New York City from Florida a few months ago. Since then she got a job as a reporter, and lost the same job when the paper folded shortly thereafter (the newspaper business ain’t exactly booming, have you heard?). Now Rebekah has a job working as a ‘stringer’ for tabloid paper, New York Tribune. It’s not her ideal job (certainly not always aligned with her ethics) – as stringer, Rebekah works freelance for the Tribune and is first on the scene for breaking news stories as well as stories less likely to make the final edition. Rebekah doesn’t have an office, per-se, New York is her office and as stringer she needs to get to locations quickly and scout sources (yes, it’s her job to find people who discovered dead bodies, hound police for answers and ask grieving loved ones how they’re feeling).On a cold, blistery New York morning Rebekah is assigned to a call down at a scrapyard where a body has been found in the mouth of a crane. But what starts as a fairly cut and dry story (though gruesome) quickly captures Rebekah’s attention when the body is confirmed to be that of a woman … then three Hasidic Jewish men arrive on the scene, followed by a specially marked van competing with the coroner for authority over the body, and Rebekah starts to learn just how complicated this story, and case, could become.The woman was a Hasidic Jew from Borough Park in Brooklyn. It is their religious belief that every hair and scrap of blood be buried with the deceased – thereby potentially eliminating evidence. Once the Hasidic community retrieve the body, everyone all but informs Rebekah that the case is over; the NYPD are known to relinquish cases dealing with Hasidic Jews – even homicides – lest they step on religious toes, and they don’t even object when families decline autopsy for murder victims (a body is not allowed to be cut open).But this case is hitting close to home for Rebekah, whose own mother was a Hasidic Jew from Borough Park, who met Rebekah’s ‘goy’ father during her teenage rebellion when she was questioning her Ultra-Orthodox religion. But once Rebekah was born her mother returned to her community, abandoning her baby and never making contact with her father again. Rebekah has grown up with anxiety and a deep sadness over her mother’s abandonment of her, and she can’t deny that at the back of her mind choosing to move from Florida to New York may have had something to do with wanting to try and find her mother after all these years…As stringer, it’s Rebekah’s job to move from story to story as the news hits – but she can’t let go of the ‘body at the scrapyard’. Not when she learns the woman’s name – Rivka Mendelssohn – and starts to dig into her life, and discovers she too was questioning her Ultra-Orthodox upbringing, the same way Rebekah’s mother did all those years ago.Then Rebekah meets Saul Katz, of the NYPD Shomrim (a fraternal organization for Jewish police officers of the New York City Police Department). Saul recognises Rebekah instantly, because he knew her mother and they look so very much alike. Though Saul deals mostly in theft cases, he is very invested in Rivka Mendelssohn’s death, and angry at the lack of NYPD involvement (nobody has even bought in Rivka’s husband, the influential Aron Mendelssohn, for questioning even though he owns the scrapyard where her body was found). He agrees to being Rebekah’s police informant as she keeps digging into the case…‘Invisible City’ is the debut novel from Julia Dahl, a journalist specializing in crime and criminal justice who has previously worked for CBS News.com and the New York Post.I kept hearing about this book from BookRiot.com – who ran several promotional ads and give-aways of Dahl’s debut. I loved the eerie cover, and was thoroughly intrigued by a crime-thriller based around the Hasidic Jewish community of Brooklyn. Now that I’ve read the book I have half-n’-half feelings, though I am crossing my fingers that Dahl writes more in (what I assume is?) the series, since Goodreads have labelled ‘Invisible City’ as ‘Rebekah Roberts #1’.Straight off the bat – Rebekah having been abandoned by her Hasidic Jewish mother as a baby rings very, very convenient for this story and starts to feel clunky quite quickly. Yes, it establishes a backdrop for Rebekah and instantly gives readers some idea about the emotional instability of this protagonist. But Dahl relies heavily on Rebekah’s absent mother for plot convenience, when those in the Jewish community can seemingly tell that Rebekah is ‘one of them’ just by looking at her and it’s because of her mother that she gains a vital police informant in Saul Katz. I think Dahl relied on the mother plot too, to cut many corners in Rebekah’s investigations which also meant pacing and suspense sometimes suffered – I think ‘Invisible City’ would have been a very different (perhaps better?) story if Rebekah had actually been a true outsider to this community, instead of feeling torn between her heritage and misplaced feelings of abandonment/rejection by the community.I don’t know, possibly Rebekah’s mother could play a bigger part in subsequent stories – but for this first instalment, there was an over-reliance and too much convenience and it even felt like Dahl was cutting emotional corners by being so on-the-nose to have Rebekah investigate the murder of a Hasidic Jewish woman when her own mother was one, and abandoned her for the very same community that harbours Rivka Mendelssohn’s killer. Y’know?It may sound like I had a really big issue with the whole story, if I couldn’t get past this huge crux of it. But, actually, mother-issues aside, I thoroughly enjoyed and was happily sucked into Dahl’s crime-thriller. The Hasidic Jewish setting in Brooklyn is fascinating – I have little to no knowledge about that community, and the way Dahl fed readers information (sometimes outrageous, as it related to the homicide case!) was incredible.This was one crime-thriller in which setting definitely dictated all aspects, and became a character unto itself. It was also really intriguing because Dahl made women such a big focus of the story – the patriarchal world these women live in in the Hasidic community is explored particularly well.I will say that some aspects of the story needed tightening and cutting. Rebekah has just started a romantic relationship, of sorts, with a local bar-owner called Tony that kind of went nowhere but that Dahl relied on (again, for plot short-cuts) to give Rebekah more ties to the NYPD. Sometimes Dahl’s writing lent itself more to literary styling than crime-thriller (indeed; pacing felt off, particularly at the end, and I felt that overall the book needed bigger injections of ‘thriller’).This book sways between a 3 and 3.5 for me. This is, after all, Dahl’s debut and if it’s for an ongoing crime series then she has good bones in Rebekah Roberts – the mother stuff may have felt overly convenient for much of this first book, but I see great potential for it to be explored (deeper, and better) in subsequent instalments. I do hope Saul Katz remains a player in any subsequent books too (in fact … I did wonder halfway through if Saul would have been a better protagonist to base this series around, especially when his backstory was far more compelling than Rebekah’s absentee mother for me?). But I can’t deny that Dahl gave me chills with some of her passages, the focus on murder in a Hasidic Jewish community of Brooklyn makes for captivating reading and I can see future potential for this sleuth. Not perfect, but pretty damn good.3.5/5

Just finished Reading it. It’s excellent. The journalist protagonist is interesting and her experience is believable

I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was suspenseful and the characters were nuanced. Ironically, the only character who felt a bit flat was Rebekah herself.To me, in the beginning of the book, Rebekahs' language, actions, and thoughts seemed off and it consequently made her slightly off-putting. But once the story got going, the plot and the other characters were really engaging and it definitely drew me in.I also really enjoyed the author's presentation of Orthodox Jews and their way of life. I had read another person's review before purchasing this book who had taken umbrage with the author's portrayal of the Hasidim. That person felt that the ending tried at the last moment to reverse its earlier position. That it felt like an afterthought in a book that had presented a disparaging view of the Orthodox Jewish religion. After reading this book, I did not come to the same conclusion at all.I thought Rebekah's views and judgements regarding the Hasidim were not only supposed to be a reflection of her conflicted feelings towards her mother but, most importantly, they were supposed to reflect how outsiders might perceive the Orthodox Jewish religion and customs. In essence, it was supposed to reflect how we as readers, as people outside of this religion, might find them strange and alienating. Through Rebekah's interaction with members of the community she gains more insight into the culture and customs and come away from the experience with a more nuanced understanding of why and how the Hasidim community operates the way they do. She neither condemns nor condones the community itself and I, personally, came away wanting to know more about this small, insular sect. I look forward to reading the second book in the series and finding out more about the Hasidim as well as more about Rebekah's story.

The naked body of a woman is found in a scrap yard. Her head is shaven, a Hassidic tradition, and the scrap yard belongs to a rich and influential member of the Hassidic community.Young Tribune reporter Rebekah Roberts gets interested in the case because her mother was raised Hassidic. Aviva abandoned Rebekah as a baby, and has never been in touch since. So Rebekah has a lot of anxiety relating to her mother. Investigating this crime takes her deep into the Hassidic community life that her mother rebelled against, but never fully escaped.Rebekah is interested in getting justice for the murdered woman. But her bosses are even more interested in a possible police cover up. Either way, there's a story here that promises to be the making of Rebekah's career.Although the story reveals the inability of the Hassidic community to deal effectively with violence and child abuse within the community, it also explains, through the words of one of the characters, how the customs of the community arose and how their way of life protects members. So there's an attempt at a balanced view. But the secretive nature of the Hassidic lifestyle does make a perfect backdrop for a murder mystery.Rebekah's investigation is fascinating, and she's particularly appealing because she's inexperienced and finding her way by trial and error, despite a heavy load of personal baggage.I loved this book. I read the sequel, Run You Down, before Invisible City, which wasn't the best approach, but my enjoyment of both books was undiminished by reading them out of order. I look forward to future books in this series.

Invisible City is, in my opinion, an interesting and unique crime story with a fascinating main character. Rebekah Roberts, 22 years old, is struggling with her identity and her past, having been abandoned by her Hasidic mother when she was born and raised by her Christian father in Florida. Rebekah Roberts now lives and works in New York as a stringer for a tabloid newspaper.When she is sent to cover the story of a body being discovered within the Hasidic community, Rebekah starts investigating and discovers secrets, deception and concealment’s within this closed community.Personally, I thought the author portrayed the secret world of the orthodox Jews in Brooklyn in a fascinating and well researched manner. An interesting and gripping story and I look forward to reading the next book in this series.

I could not put this book down. I am, I admit, fascinated by all religions but especially Judaism. The Hasidic way of life is so alien to someone who lives a totally different way of life and this book helps explain the unknown. So very interesting and somewhat sad. Only point I would have liked is a glosssary of Yiddish words. Some I knew and some I didn't. Would highly recommend.

I thought this was excellent. I loved the insight into the religious Jewish community and thought this was very well balanced with the crime aspect of the story. I raced through the book and look forward to reading the next one, following the 'journey' of the main character.

This offers a good insight in to Orthodox Jewish communities, and journalism as a career, all wrapped in a great thriller. Perfect escapism.

A well written whodunnit with insights into the world of journalism and the Orthodox Jewish life. There is a glimpse of the life of a modern New York single woman. Well characterised and a compelling read