Invisible City: A Novel (Rebekah Roberts Novels)

One and a half stars.

Mild spoilers to follow...

This book was trash. And not even fun trash. It gave no insight into Brooklyn's ultra-Orthodox community that you couldn't find from about five minutes on Google, or in local newspaper coverage. My favorite bit was how Rebekah opines again and again that another character could not have gotten a divorce without losing custody of her children in the rabinnical court system. New flash: The United States is not run by rabinnical courts. Why such bodies should have jurisdiction over custody disputes is beyond me, and is never explained by the author. Couldn't the character in question simply have gone to the family courthouse downtown and said, "I want to file for custody of my kids?"

The characters had no depth. The writing has no heat. There are sequences that seem completely disjointed from the rest of the book. For example, in one sequence Rebekah is one a date, then goes home with her boyfriend to find his mother wielding a hammer at some policemen on site. That deathless scene is not explained until the book's end. I mean, Rebekah doesn't even say, "Hey, Tony, what's the deal with your mom and the hammer?" Instead, following the hammer scene, they go off to drink beers.

The author's writing is so bad that when she uses phrases such as "Dad made dinner for me and Iris," or "Tony came to take me and Susie out for beers," you don't know whether this is supposed to be Rebekah's voice, or whether the author simply doesn't know she's making errors in grammar.

The only insteresting plot line in the novel...the author's semi-search for her long vanished mother...is not resolved. Rather, it's used as a set-up for book two in what has to be the most turgid crime series ever. Good luck with that, sweetie. I don't care nearly enough about Rebekah's Magical Vanishing Mom to invest another cent or minute in your work.

One and a half stars.

Mild spoilers to follow...

This book was trash. And not even fun trash. It gave no insight into Brooklyn's ultra-Orthodox community that you couldn't find from about five minutes on Google, or in local newspaper coverage. My favorite bit was how Rebekah opines again and again that another character could not have gotten a divorce without losing custody of her children in the rabinnical court system. New flash: The United States is not run by rabinnical courts. Why such bodies should have jurisdiction over custody disputes is beyond me, and is never explained by the author. Couldn't the character in question simply have gone to the family courthouse downtown and said, "I want to file for custody of my kids?"

The characters had no depth. The writing has no heat. There are sequences that seem completely disjointed from the rest of the book. For example, in one sequence Rebekah is one a date, then goes home with her boyfriend to find his mother wielding a hammer at some policemen on site. That deathless scene is not explained until the book's end. I mean, Rebekah doesn't even say, "Hey, Tony, what's the deal with your mom and the hammer?" Instead, following the hammer scene, they go off to drink beers.

The author's writing is so bad that when she uses phrases such as "Dad made dinner for me and Iris," or "Tony came to take me and Susie out for beers," you don't know whether this is supposed to be Rebekah's voice, or whether the author simply doesn't know she's making errors in grammar.

The only insteresting plot line in the novel...the author's semi-search for her long vanished mother...is not resolved. Rather, it's used as a set-up for book two in what has to be the most turgid crime series ever. Good luck with that, sweetie. I don't care nearly enough about Rebekah's Magical Vanishing Mom to invest another cent or minute in your work.

I'm an orthodox Jew (although not Hasidic) so part of me wanted to read this book so I could find out if the author treated Orthodox Judiasm with respect. For the most part, the answer to that question is yes. She did not join in the orthodox bashing that has been engaged in by many recent authors. She tries to be balanced while discussing some of the drawbacks of the community without coming out judgemental or negative. Unfortunately, this tone seemed to overlap a little into her writing which seemed to lack passion or energy.

The biggest drawback, however, was that I simply did not like the main character in the novel. She was immature and, quite frankly, a little whiney. And way too much of the book was devoted to information that didn't move the plot forward, or explore the complicated culture, or even the crime.

All in all, I don't hate the book, but I don't love it either.

I requested this book via the vine program, because the promo intrigued me. Rebekah Roberts is a young reporter covering a murder story that will connect her to her past. As a child, Rebekah's mother abandons her. Her mother is a Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn who, as a young woman, fell in love with her Christian father. However, she is not able to live with her decision and decides to return to the Hasidic community. Many years later, a Hasidic woman is found murdered and Rebekah is the reporter on call that arrives at the scene to cover the story. In her efforts to investigate, she learns about the Hasidic community and is forced to deal with her feelings of abandonment.

Overall, I thought this book had an excellent plot and interesting story. However, I felt the author spent most of her time exploring Rebekah's life as a reporter, instead of delving into the more interesting part of the story - the dead woman and the circumstances surrounding her death. That would have been an amazing read. I wouldn't recommend this book as a must read, but definitely give it a try if you are looking for a book that may catch your interest.

It was only a coincidence that I picked up Invisible City by Julia Dahl not long after I read Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects. Almost immediately I found myself experiencing the same emotions with Rebekah Roberts, Invisible City's main character, as I did with Camille Preaker from Sharp Objects. Yes, they are reporters and yes, they have their own demons they are exercising, but there was something more that captured my attention and made me want to experience life with them. In Invisible City, Rebekah is searching for herself and her family in a community of people that may teach her more about who she is than she realizes.

What I loved most about this book is the way in which the author was able to masterfully present layers of tension within her story. I felt each character's conflict as they related to Rebekah's investigation. The idea of a crime within the Hasidic community, for example, adds a complexity to the plot that I never experienced before as a reader. I found it enlightening. Life isn't simple in any community, any family. The author reminded me of that with this story.

As far as this being the first book in a series, I was so satisfied with the way it sets up the reader for book two, that I have to mention it. I was so happy to continue once I reached THE END. I'm sure you will be too.

In summary, I've seen quite a few "if you liked Sharp Objects you must read this book" lists written on the internet but none that have included Invisible City. Well, this book is a must-read if you loved Gillian Flynn's first novel. I think the reason is, Julia and Gillian write without fear and I really appreciate that in a story. Any crime fiction fan looking for a new series will fall in love with Rebekah's story as she very much is one of us, trying to figure it out as we go along.

This is a fairly well written murder mystery by Julia Dahl. It is a fairly easy read in a modern popular style. The protagonist is a youthful female reporter who doggedly pursues her investigation. I liked it and felt it was a good, but not great novel. There were times that I considered the novel a true "page tuner". Later on in the book, I felt it slowed a little bit, but was setting up for the possibility of a sequel.

The most unique aspect of the novel for me was also the most enjoyable. There is a homicide that occurs within the New York City Jewish Community. I like learning about other parts of our culture that I do not have an indepth knowledge of. I felt I learned a lot about that community. There were times, at first, that I was concerned that the novel was hard on that community. I ended up feeling that both sides of the community was presented.

Additionally, I happened to read another first novel by another female author; "The Ritual Bath" by Faye Kellerman. That novel was written in 1986. It is a criminal investigation mystery novel set in the Jewish Community in Los Angeles. I enjoyed reading both of these novels both on their own merits, but also to compare and contrast styles and time periods.

I purchased this novel on Kindle, and also audiobook at the same time. I enjoyed the audiobook. The narrator is Andi Arendt. It was well done and I could continue my reading while commuting. That makes commuting much easier for me.

I intend to read a subsequent novel of Miss Dahl. As far as this novel, It is the kind of novel that I like but would not read it again without specific cause. Thank You...

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Minotaur books and NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary e-book copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

My Review: I do love me a great mystery. If a little extra 'somethin'-somethin' is thrown into the mix, all the better for this reader. Invisible City is the debut novel by Julia Dahl and I found it to be quite impressive. Not only did she write a compelling mystery but she included the intriguing addition of the ultra-private Hasidic community into her storyline. I enjoyed getting a very personal look into what it would be like to be a woman in the Hasidic community.

"Most Heredi in Brooklyn are descended from Holocaust survivors. My mother's entire family - six brothers and sisters, her parents and grandparents - were murdered by the Nazis in Poland. We know intimately how quickly our goyish neighbors can turn on us. We know that to survive we must rely on one another, we must support and protect our fellow Jews. We do not do this because we do not believe that sin should be punished.

"The strength of our community is vital to our survival. You look at us and you see black hats and wigs and you think we are to be pitied. You think you know better. But you don't see more than you see. You think the prohibition against men and women touching is misogynist. You don't see the tenderness, or passion, with which a husband touches his wife after she is niddah. You think that clothing that exposes you flesh makes you free. but in my modest clothing I am free from the leering stares of men. I am free to be judged by my intellect and my actions, not my body."

Personally, I found learning about the Hasidic community fascinating and it was my favourite part of the book. Seeing their 'cultural baggage' and the legacy of hate, condemnation and discrimination that they continue to deal with on a daily basis was eye opening. I appreciated how Ms Dahl compassionately and respectfully showed the strong sense of community and determined self-preservation of the Hasidic culture.

Ms Dahl also spent time letting the reader get to know Rebekah. Sure she's a new reporter and has to deal with the chaos that comes with that job but it's seeing how Rebekah is still dealing with the absence of her mother, her acute anxiety disorder and getting to know her Hasidic roots is what really solidified Rebekah as an interesting protagonist for me. Rebekah is young, impulsive and new as a reporter and I liked that she faltered and make mistakes.

Invisible City was a solid mystery with enough twists to keep me guessing. But this book also has the added benefit of educating the reader (at least this reader) on the Hasidic community - a community that I knew very little about before picking up this book. The book was nicely paced for the most part -- although I will admit to a little bit of a lull in the middle of the book. Overall, this was an impressive debut mystery read and I'm interested to see where Rebekah's search for her past takes her in the future books in this series.

My Rating: 4/5 stars
** This book review, as well as many more, can also be found on my blog, The Baking Bookworm (www.thebakingbookworm.ca) where I also share my favourite 'tried and true' recipes.

Invisible City is narrated by Rebekah Roberts, a stringer for a New York tabloid newspaper. When she is asked to cover the discovery of a woman's body in a scrapyard, she becomes embroiled in the mystery of her death. Rebekah is drawn to the murdered woman's story because she was a Hasidic Jew, and Rebekah's estranged mother was also Hasidic. When Rebekah is presented with evidence that the police are not strongly pursuing the case because of the political clout of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, she takes up the challenge of uncovering the truth of her murder.

While Invisible City is being described as a mystery, I think the mystery itself is not the strong point of this novel. Rebekah might be a good journalist (and the reader does get an interesting glimpse inside how newspaper reporting works). However, she isn't very good at investigating the murder. She ultimately stumbles on the identity of the murderer, rather than following the evidence to try to figure out who committed the crime. I actually think the reader is quite likely to guess who did it long before Rebekah learns the truth.

What kept me reading wasn't the solution to the mystery, but the depiction of the strict orthodox Jewish community and Rebekah's attempts to come to grips with her Jewish heritage. The author isn't a member of the sect, but she's clearly done her research and provides a fascinating glimpse inside a community that most readers won't be familiar with. Rebekah is the perfect vehicle for the reader to learn more about Hasidic Judaism. Although Rebekah has conflicted feelings about her mother since she abandoned her daughter as a baby, she can't help being drawn to learning more about where her absent mother came from and how she grew up. Ultimately, Rebekah begins to understand the centrality of the Jewish faith to her mother's life and why it was impossible for her to completely break away from her community.

The end of the novel suggests that this is the first of a series and sets the stage for Rebekah to continue to learn more about both the Hasidim and her mother's life. I'm curious enough about what she'll discover that I'm definitely planning to read the next in the series.

An ARC of this novel was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Invisible City by Julia Dahl tugged at my curiosity about Hasidic Jews. They are indeed an invisible city, unless we read a book about their life by a former Hasidic we really don’t know that much about their lives. The author is a journalist who writes about crime and if the main character could have a wish, I believe that she would like the same career.

Rebekah Roberts was raised by her father after her mother left her when she was just a few weeks old. Her father met her mother in the religion section of a bookstore. Her mother left them to return to a Hasidic community in Brooklyn. Rebekah felt discarded by her mother and even though she was now a “stringer” for a newspaper in New York, she felt that she could never forgive her.
Rebekah gets called off her assignment because a woman’s naked body was found in a scrap yard. When Rebekah got there the lifeless woman was dangling from a machine in the air. She could make out the poor woman’s leg. Rebekah finds out that scrap yard is owned by rich Hasidic Jew. She is shocked that there will be no autopsy. A group of Hasidic men come for the woman’s body and put it in a black body bag. She talks to a little boy who says he knows that his mother was not sick when she died. That and many other clues that pile up and the idea that the police will probably not investigate this crime spur her fact finding on. She is also haunted by the knowledge that her mother was Hasidic.

Julia Dahl writes a well-researched and intriguing mystery. As the story continued, I wanted to learn more about Rebeca’s mother. This story keeps you reading and makes me want to read the next one in the series. I was already with many of the customs and traditions of the Hasidic Jews but the book increased my vocabulary and I understand more about them with that added information.

I highly recommend this book to people who are intrigued by Hasidic Jews and by mystery lovers.
I received the ARC of Invisible City from the store Vine for unbiased review. The thoughts and feelings in this review are entirely my own.

Rebekah Roberts is an aspiring young reporter, a Florida transplant newly arrived in the Big Apple. She works for a tabloid newspaper as a stringer -- a freelance journalist sent out on stories to gather facts and impressions. While it's not her dream job, she sees it as perhaps a step to her dream job. And, while Rebekah is fearless and bold in terms of knocking on doors and asking wildly personal questions of people involved, on her own she's a bucket of insecurities.

It seems that Rebekah's mother, Aviva, an Orthodox Jew, met Rebekah's father (a student of religious studies) while out in the world, questioning her upbringing. She gave birth to Rebekah but left shortly thereafter and has not contacted her since. Rebekah suffers from anxiety attacks, panic attacks, IBS, and a host of other anxiety-related problems, and has been angry with her mother her entire life. This colors her relationships and, at times, makes you wonder how she functions at all.

Rebekah is at a crime scene - a woman's body has been found beneath a mountain of scrap metal in a junk yard - covering the horrifying discovery. In the process she meets Saul, who says he's a cop and liaison to the Hasidic community, and knew her mother. In fact, he tells Rebekah that she looks like her mother and gets her an entry into the Hasidic community.

Rebekah is hooked. She finds ways to speak to members of the reclusive Hasidic community, learning more about the culture from which her mother came, more and more about the dead woman, and, perhaps, more about herself.

The book has much to recommend it:

It's a well-paced mystery that will keep you turning the pages.

It doesn't trivialize or mock the Hasidic culture, but enlightens the reader, providing reasons for much its closed-off nature. It is especially compelling in terms of a woman's role in the "Black Hat" society.

The book gives an in-depth view of stringers, tabloid journalism, and journalism in general.

My only quibble with the book is Rebekah's character. While I like flawed characters as much as the next reader, I tired of her constant anger and anxieties. It was kind of like hanging out with an angry hipster for 300 pages.

The book seems poised for a sequel. I would read it, but would hope that Rebekah has learned enough about herself in this debut novel to start forgiving and moving on.

When young reporter Rebekah Roberts makes the move from central Florida to New York City, she is looking for excitement and perhaps some information about her mother, who had abandoned Rebekah as an infant to return to the Hasidic Jewish community in New York in which she had grown up. Rebekah is trying to deal with the shock of a bitterly cold New York winter and the boredom of a routine news assignment when she responds to a call about a woman’s body in a scrapyard in Brooklyn and finds more than she ever had bargained for, both journalistically and personally.
Rebekah recognizes that something unusual is going on when the body is removed, not by the county medical examiner but by a van with Hebrew lettering. She later learns that the dead woman is Rivka Mendelssohn, wife of the scrapyard owner. They are Hasidic Jews, whose religion forbids autopsy and requires prompt burial of every least bit of the remains of the deceased. Due to the influence of the Hasidic community in this section of New York, the police work very hard to accommodate the Jews’ sensitivities, and Rebekah becomes more and more convinced that this accommodation will prevent the authorities from ever learning the truth about Rivka’s death. She resolves to find the truth herself, in the interest of both justice and Journalism.
Rebekah is encouraged to pursue her investigation by Saul Katz, an orthodox Jew who introduces himself as a police officer who often helped with translation in cases involving the Hasidic community, since many of them are more comfortable with Yiddish than English. Saul also, as it turns out, knows both of Rebekah’s parents, and Rebekah is eager to learn what he can tell her about her mother.
Protagonist Rebekah Roberts is a thoroughly believable modern young woman---she smokes, is very frank about sexuality, and would never seem a candidate for the Hasidim, but nevertheless she wants to find her mother and learn more about what made her leave her infant child. Her Christian scholar father, who raised Rebekah, also seems rather enigmatic, and there is much that Rebekah does not seem to understand about him either. As Rebekah describes it, her “parents were looking for God in a bookstore when they met”; clearly the visions of God they found were very different, and Rebekah does not share either of their visions.
Invisible City is what I like to think of as a “mystery plus”, a good story that also gives me information or insight on some interesting subject, in this case Hasidic Judaism, its societal practices, and its relationships with civil authority. As Rebekah herself says, “a homicide being overlooked because a powerful, insular community doesn’t want attention is a great story”.
Ultimately, the mystery of Rivka’s death is solved, but Rebekah’s quest to find her mother and her roots has just begun. We can expect to read more about Rebekah Roberts.

Rebekah Roberts was born to a Hasidic (Ultra-Orthodox) Jewish mother and Christian father. Her mother, Aviva, defied her community by questioning some of its rules, but shortly after Rebekah’s birth she abandoned Rebekah and her father and supposedly returned to her community. Rebekah struggled with this abandonment her whole life.

As a new reporter Rebekah was assigned to report on the discovery of a body in the Hasidic community, which the police were ignoring. They seemed to be letting the Hasidic community deal with internally, which was allowing the crime to be buried along with the body. With the assistance of a man who introduced himself as a police detective and an old friend of Aviva, Rebekah probes the murder and the rigid Hasidic culture that her mother was raised in.

This was an excellent mystery and a real page-turner. The author did a great job at describing the closed Hasidic world while also being sensitive as to why it was so closed. I will be recommending this to many people and am looking forward to more from this author. This would be a good book club selection.

The new novel by Julia Dahl, Invisible City, refers to the insular ultra-Orthodox Jewish community within New York. The story opens when Rebekah Roberts, stringer to the New York Tribune, is assigned to cover the story of a body found in a scrap heap by the river. Things get complicated when it is revealed that the body is a young mother of the Hasidic community, whose husband owns the scrap yard. Despite these damning coincidences, the body is quietly taken away by members of the Orthodox community’s private police force and buried without police involvement–neither the collection of evidence, autopsy, nor questioning of the woman’s husband and family– all pointing to a suspected NYPD cover-up for the sake of political ambitions and financial donations from the wealthy and powerful Jewish community. Roberts, refusing to let the truth behind the murder of this woman be buried with her, attempts to get answers from a silent Hasidic community, distrustful of outsiders. But Roberts, haunted by her own crippling past in which her Orthodox Jewish mother abandoned her, probes deeper into the murder in an attempt to get answers not just for the victim’s sake, but also for herself. The story is written in the first person and in present tense, lending a breathless immediacy to the action, which takes place over the course of only one week. The story is a well plotted page turner and the characters are well drawn. The author’s own experience as a reporter shines through in the authenticity of the character’s experiences. My only objection is the over-use of profanity and at one point an awkwardly phrased apology to the Orthodox community in the mouth of one of the characters. Overall, an interesting read.

I really did not think that I would like “Invisible city” by Julia Dahl, but I signed up to review it and had to read it. Actually “had” is not the right word. I was hooked after the first chapter. The story concerns Rebekah, a fledgling reporter for a small newspaper trying to find that one good story. Right now, she is just a stringer, chasing leads given by her editors. She is also haunted by the fact that her mother, an Hasidic Jew, left her and her father soon after she was born.

She is assigned a story about the killing of the wife of a prominent Hasidic Jew in Brooklyn. This woman was a wife and mother of four children. Something is amiss in the investigation of this murder though. It seems that the authorities look the other way when crimes occur in the Orthodox community. There has been no autopsy and the investigation seems at a standstill. Rebekah is determined to follow all the leads she can to get justice for this poor woman. There are so many twists and turns in this story that I had to read until I finished the book. I surely did not see the end coming and because of this, the book kept my interest throughout. I highly recommend this novel, not only for its thrills and mystery, but as a story that gives insight about a sect of people and their beliefs and the fact that this community is a city within a city..

I received a free print copy of the book in return for my honest opinion of the book from NightOwlReviews.com. You can find this review at http://wp.me/p2pjIt-g8. Check out my other reviews on my blog, I’m Hooked On Books, at http://imhookedonbooks.wordpress.com.

Rebekah Brown was raised in Orlando by her single Lutheran father. Her mother, Aviva, a Hasidic Jew, left her father shortly after Rebekah was born. At the time Rebekah's parents met at the Strand bookstore in New York City, Aviva was questioning her ultra-orthodox faith. She ran off with Rebekah's father but they never married. As soon as Rebekah graduated from college, she decided to go to New York City to become a journalist. Also, in the back of her mind, she is looking for her mother, or at least some knowledge of what happened to her.

In New York, Rebekah is a stringer for the Tribune. She goes from place to place in the city, reporting for a short time on whatever her assignment is. Her most recent assignment is to report on a dead woman who is found in a scrap heap in a hasidic neighborhood. Rebekah gets caught up in this case and decides she will find out the truth behind the woman's death.

The dead woman, Rivka Mendelssohn, has been murdered by trauma to the head. She has also had her hair shorn and it appears that she may have been tied up before she died. The scrap heap where she is found is owned by her husband, Aron Mendelssoh, a wealthy and influential man in the hasidic community. Rebekah is stunned that the New York Police Department does not do an autopsy. A van with hebrew lettering comes and takes the body away. Additionally, the police do not seem interested in the case.

As Rebekah pursues what is behind Rivka's murder, what Rivka was like, and who is responsible, she learns a lot about hasidic life. Hasids keep to themselves and live as though history has not changed in hundreds of years. They all dress similarly and women wear wigs and have virtually no skin showing. They have their own police force, a neighborhood watch, called the Shomrim. Hasidic children are taught to call them in an emergency instead of 911. Their lives are devoted to Hashem and to their community. Rebekah wonders why the NYPD is not more involved in the case and is shocked that they let this group of people more or less govern themselves.

As Rivka gets closer to finding out what happened, she also learns much more about her own self and history. This mystery is very well written and I enjoyed the setting in Borough Park. I've been there myself and have familiarity with hasidic life so this book really spoke to me. My only complaint is that the ending is just too pat and did not really flesh out the book.

Finish Time: 5 nights. I’ve been hesitating to write this review. This book was fine. It was an interesting topic, somewhat of a page-turning mystery, but it didn’t floor me, and I just don’t have a lot to say about it.

The book focuses on Rebekah Roberts, a free-lance reporter for the New York Tribune, a tabloid newspaper. Her role as reporter quickly turns into investigator as she is assigned to cover the murder of a member of the Hasidic community in Brooklyn, NY. A culture that has always intrigued her, as her mother who abandoned her when she was little, was a member of this very community. But that very culture holds their secrets tight and is wary to outsiders.

I won’t get more into the details as you can read the blurb from the store at the end, but I guess I just never liked that Rebekah was a reporter. This is totally personal preference, but I can’t help but think if I were a member of the community, the last person I would want to talk to is a reporter, for a tabloid! I felt uncomfortable for her, as it is beyond my comprehension to approach people in their time of grieving. She is good at fitting in and getting the information, but she takes on more of an investigator role, which I think would have been more fitting for the book.

Again, just my opinion, and maybe a little discomfort in reading is good. I enjoyed the tidbits thrown in about her mother and really liked discovering more about her past along with her. The characters were all very well described and the book, while slow at times, definitely kept you guessing and hanging on til the very end to figure out who did it.

And then the ending, well without spoiling it, left a lot to be desired. As I read the subtitle (A Rebekah Roberts Novel), I’m guessing there may have been some before and will definitely be some after. I’m just not a big fan of series either. So I’ll end it here as I don’t like to be negative, it was a good story, kept me interested, just frustrated I guess!

*Book provided free through NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.

At the beginning of this murder mystery, Rebekah Roberts is a stringer for the New York Tribune covering the discovery of a naked, dead Hasidic woman (Rivka Mendelssohn) at a Brooklyn scrap yard owned by Mendelssohn's husband. However, what starts out as routine reporting becomes anything but. Rebekah encounters Saul Katz, a police officer who grew up in the same Hasidic community that this murder occurs, and where Rebekah's mother (Aviva) came from. As she pulls back the onion-like layers to try and find out why Rivka was murdered, she sees similarities to her own mother's plight.

Aviva had a dalliance with leaving her closed Hasidic community and had a brief fling with Rebekah's father, before abandoning her and her baby daughter to return to her family. Needless to say, this has left Rebekah with many, many parental issues which fuel her career and her quest to find her mother.

As we learn about the closed Hasidic world, we also meet some of those at the fringes who chafe at the restrictions and long for something more in life. It turns out that the murdered Rivka was one of these. However, the motivations of her husband, sister-in-law and the not-quite-what-he-seems Saul keep shifting as Rebekah for personal and professional reasons tries to uncover the story.

Julia Dahl keeps us engaged in this debut novel, as the twists and turns of the story pull us deeper into the Hasidic world. She leaves us with a teaser on the last pages as Rebekah's mother reaches out through Saul to finally make contact with her daughter.

Invisible City by Julia Dahl is a fabulous debut mystery novel. It is the first book in the Rebekah Roberts series. Rebekah is a fascinating women. She is one half Hasidic Jew but was not raised in the faith. Her mother, Aviva Kagan, abandoned Rebekah and her father when she was a baby. Rebekah's journey is very intriguing.

Rebekah though raised by her father in Florida, is now a tabloid reporter in New York City. When a woman from Brooklyn's Hasidic community is murdered, Rebekah is drawn into the community she has always been curious but cautious about. As Rebekah explored and delved deeper into the workings of the Hasidic community, we the readers learned too. I've always been fascinated by their decision to dress and live they way they do and I have now been very enlightened. I completely understand why they chose to live together as a group. Why it is important. There is nothing better than learning new things while you are reading an outstanding book.

Great writing, settings and intriguing characters brought The Invisible City to life. I highly recommend reading this book. The Invisible City was recently nominated for an Anthony award and also was nominated for a Edgar award. So deserving! Must read!!!

The second book in the series, Run You Down, is out in June. I cannot wait to read it!

Rebekah Roberts is a twenty something "stringer" working

for the New York Tribune. She is struggling to find her way through the fast paced newspaper world while making a name for herself professionally as a journalist. Rebekah desperately wants to create her own identity away from Florida and her loving Dad so she can finally overcome the lifelong anxiety created by her mother's abandonment when she was an infant. Rebekah is feisty, smart and talented and as she immerses herself into a story of murder and intrigue buried deep in the Hasidic section of Borough Park, Brooklyn, she begins to finally understand how troubled her own mother must have been and why she could not ultimately break with the only community she knew. A lively bunch of characters surround this spunky young woman; Iris her roommate and longtime friend, Tony, the bartender she is currently dating and Saul who appears from the past and pushes her deeper into this mystery with his own heartbreak and his own agenda at hand. This fascinating glimpse into a world within our world which is often closed to outsiders, is filled with intrigue and suspense as Rebekah bravely discovers her own gauge for right and wrong both personally and professionally. Easy to read, unique, enjoyable novel! I can only hope this terrific author continues to share her incredible talent and creativity with more to come! Highly recommend this great summer read, pick up today!!! [...]

The varied elements of this novel combine to make this both a compelling personal story and a suspenseful mystery. These include a homicide in an insular religious community that to some extent operates under its own laws and a complexly drawn main character with a troubled family history and a job that has her running all over the city inserting herself in other people’s lives. Invisible City by Julia Dahl had me from its premise and did not disappoint as I read. I was so drawn to it I found myself picking it up even when I only had a few minutes to spare.

After graduating with a journalism degree, Rebekah Roberts moved from Florida to New York City to look for a job in her field and possibly be near her mother, who she hasn’t seen since she was a baby. Rebekah suspects her mother may be living in the Brooklyn Hasidic community where her mother grew up, but she doesn’t actually know. As a young woman Rebekah’s mother had a stormy period of questioning, during which she fled the Hasidic community and married, but she left her Christian husband and their baby not long after Rebekah was born and neither husband nor daughter has heard from her since. Unsurprisingly, Rebekah has abandonment issues that surface as acute anxiety.

Rebekah did find work with a newspaper, but so far she’s scarcely written a word of copy. Instead she’s on call, chasing after newsworthy events to gather information and quotes that other writers turn into articles, and that’s how she’s on the scene when the body of a murdered Hasidic woman is found in a junkyard. At the request of the woman’s husband, a powerful man in the Hasidic community, police have scaled down the investigation and the woman's body is buried without an autopsy, raising all kinds of questions in Rebekah’s mind that, because of her mother’s background, feel personal to her as well as professional. Following the threads of the story takes Rebekah into the heart of the Hasidic community, where she is both an outsider and to some degree an insider, and may lead to a career advancing breakthrough article or bring her closer, in understanding if not in person, to her as yet undiscovered mother.

Coincidence might be a little overused in the plot, but the story had me in its grips enough that I hardly cared. I don’t know a lot about Hasidic life so I can’t say how accurate the portrayal in this book is, but the community is presented in an intimate but sympathetic light, with people of various levels of belief treated by the author with respect. This is the first of a series and I will certainly seek out the next book, though it’s hard to imagine a more powerful story for Rebekah than this one. I look forward with some confidence to seeing what Julia Dahl comes up with to match it.

Rebekah Roberts is a stringer for an NYC tabloid newspaper when she gets sent to a crime scene where a body has been discovered. As she begins to investigate the story, some uncomfortable connections to her own life come to light, as the murdered woman was a Hasidic Jew, which was also true of Rebekah's mother, who abandoned her as a baby. It is very difficult at first for Rebekah to get any info on the murdered woman from the tightly knit and closemouthed community, but before long a police officer who is part of that community is taking Rebekah to talk to the woman at the funeral home who prepared the body, and giving her information. As the threads begin to unravel, Rebekah faces danger herself and has to try to decide who she can trust.

This was a very good book with great characters and an intriguing storyline. I liked Rebekah and enjoyed the details and information the book provided on the Hasidim. The sheltered community in the middle of Brooklyn made a great backdrop for the story. The story kept me guessing, and was very enjoyable. I'm looking forward to the next Rebekah Roberts book.

The new murder mystery INVISIBLE CITY is told by Rebekah a twenty-three year old stringer for a New York City tabloid. Rebekah has had an interesting upbringing in central Florida as her mother an Ultra-Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn had left her and her father when she was six months old. Her father a Christian worked for a church. Rebekah never knew if her mother whom she physically resembled was dead or alive. In her work as a reporter she becomes involved in a case where an Ultra-Orthodox woman is found naked and dead at her husband's scrap yard. While reporting the case she soon meets a police officer about her parents' age who says he knew her mother but the man may not be totally truthful. Rebekah's investigation of this murder takes her farther in to the world where her mother was raised as she tries to please her newspaper and discover the perpetrator in the murder of this young woman.

INVISIBLE CITY is a quick, easy read that takes place over the course of a little more than a week. Anxiety plagued Rebekah is not always the most likable protagonist but author Julia Dahl does a great job of making her fully rounded and believable. The life of a tabloid stringer as well as the Ultra-Orthodox enclave are vividly portrayed. This is a good, quick mystery that has the added bonus of teaching the reader quite a bit about the lives and traditions of Hasidic Jews.

Brad Parks meet Julia Dahl; Carter Ross meet Rebekah Roberts. Carter and Rebekah are both newspaper journalists knee-deep in murders, but unless Baldacci brings them together in another “Face Off,” the Hudson River will probably keep them from ever meeting. Rebekah’s beat is Brooklyn, and in this debut, murders are occurring in the Hasidic community, while the NYPD looks the other way. The naked body of a woman is found caught in the mouth of a crane in a scrap-metal junkyard owned by a leader of the insular Jewish community. Since her mother was once a member of this clan, Rebekah manages to gain entrée to this closed world. She finds answers inside a “Hasidic House of Horrors,” facing her own death in a taut ending. Dahl’s writing is tougher than Parks’, but Parks displays more humor and his side characters are more vibrant. Still, Dahl knows her turf and deals with more complex moral and cultural issues. A smart start to what feels like a new series.

I really enjoyed this book - had a hard time putting it down. The pacing is pitch perfect, the characters interesting, and the story takes into unfamiliar worlds - top it off with topicality and voila! Entertainment!

Our intrepid heroine is Rebekah, a young reporter trying to live her dream in New York City, faced with all the challenges you might imagine. Added to this soup is her own personal mystery - what happened to her mother, a Hasidic Jew who abandoned her faith to marry and then abandoned her marriage and her daughter. Rebekah gets her first Big Break as a reporter in the Big City when the body of a murdered Hasidic woman is found in Brooklyn. Her background gives her entree into the community and its story and we're off to the races. Touching on many issues, including the ways that the Hasidic community deal (or don't deal) with sexual abuse, Invisible City is a great start to what should be a really interesting series.

I like reading new authors, I like learning about different occupations and cultures and this book did not disappoint!

Rebekah is a very young stringer-reporter for a tabloid type newspaper in New York City. In general I dislike young central characters, but I think Ms. Dahl got this one just right. Rebekah is as screwed up as most young women her age and she has more bravado than courage, but more courage than curiosity. She happens to be on the spot when a dead woman is found on a scrap heap in a Hasidic neighborhood in NYC and her curiosity is sparked because her own mother abandoned her to return to that very community.

The mysterious death is well portrayed; the suspense associated with it escalates beautifully, However this suspense is intricately interwoven with the suspense associated with Rebekah's naivete and personal shortcomings as well as the suspense generated by the overlay of fear throughout the Hasidic community. I particularly liked the manner in which the innate character of the dead woman's husband was revealed in the climax. I was heartened by the fact that she had a good friend and her father for support as well as the character development of Rebekah's quasi-boyfriend. I also liked the slim silver thread of religion and tolerance that was woven into the book.

Make no mistake -- this is a mystery, but it is so much more. I will definitely read more by Julia Dahl.

I cannot recommend this book enough. I read it in about a day (of course, it was Memorial Day weekend so for a change I had some down time).

Invisible City is a mystery set in the Hasidic community in Brooklyn. The main character is Rebecca, a reporter who is the daughter of a Christian father and a Hasidic mother. Her mother abandoned the family after she was born and the two have never met since.

As a reporter, Rebecca is assigned to a murder which, as it turns out, has significant ties to the Hasidic community. In working the story she meets people who knew her mother and starts to learn about Judaism, Hasidism and the issues that may have caused her mother to leave the community and then return.

The book is well-written and a change of pace in the way Hasidism -- and particularly Hasidic women -- are portrayed. I look forward to reading more books by Julia Dahl.

The city of the title is the ultra-Orthodox Jewish conclave in Brooklyn so isolated from the rest of society that the murder of a woman of the group is not investigated by the NYPD, but rather her body is buried, under Jewish law, within twenty-four hours. Reporter Rebekah Roberts is befriended by an NYPD officer who is also Jewish and called in as a liaison. He wants Rebekah to know what the story is, that the woman was murdered, and he wants publicity about it so that these deaths aren’t hidden. She learns that the dead woman, Rivka, had fallen in love with another man, had asked for a divorce and was questioning her religion and her life. This was not acceptable in her closed community.
Rebekah also has a hidden agenda, in that her mother abandoned her when she was a baby and returned to her Hasidic Jewish conclave. She wants to find her mother. The NYPD officer says he knows her. Rebekah learns more about what her mother was and why she did what she did. This is a fantastic book and I expect in the next one we will see her meeting with her mother. Minotaur 2014

Invisible City uses a story-within-a-story approach to the murder of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman in New York City. The “outer” story is of Rebekah, a scrappy tabloid journalist who knows neither she nor her paper is anywhere near the top of the heap for news coverage, but who is determined to do a good job with the murder story. The “inner” story is of the Borough Park Hasidic Jewish community.

While someone unfamiliar with Orthodox Jewish lifestyle will find the information interesting and intriguing, author Julia Dahl is careful not to sensationalize the differences. The emphasis is always on the story itself, with Borough Park and its residents as an interesting and unusual backdrop for what happens.

I see that Invisible City is billed as a Rebekah Roberts book, which makes me think we must be going to see more of this investigative journalist. I look forward to it.

Maybe because I worked in Borough Park Brooklyn ( the enclave of Orthodox Jews in NYC) or because I like mysteries, I chose this new book. The story was so intriguing that I read the almost 300 pages in 2 days - between a full schedule of activities.activities. Dahl introduces a young reporter looking to make her way in newspaper journalism. She becomes part of an investigation into the dumping of a nude female onto a scrap heap in a junk yard. From there the story develops into a discussion of belief, dogma, family values, truth and questioning of that truth.It is a "who-done it "that keeps you guessing up to the very end. setting the plot in a Hasidic neighborhood adds interest into a culture that many are ignorant of. I highly recommend it for your reading pleasure.

A scrappy young reporter in New York, abandoned by her Hasidic mother as an infant, is covering the story of a bald, naked woman found in a scrapyard crane. That woman is an ultra-orthodox Jewish woman whose husband is the owner of the scrapyard and her body is taken away in a private van, the police doing nothing to stop the contamination of the crime scene and doing nothing to try to solve her murder.

The reporter is drawn to the story because of her own background and her investigation into the murder gives the reader a real insight into an insular community which has its own rules and regulations. I was fascinated by this book as it seemed to authentically depict the lives of people of whom I had little knowledge.

This book is everything you want in a murder mystery. It draws you in, keeps you in, and it delivers. You think you know who done it...and you don't. You won't be able to guess who done it. I love the twists and turns the story takes, and I love how relatable Rebekah is. You learn about her anxiety with her job, her personal life, and her family. She has a lot of trouble and it makes you like her as a person more, because you feel like you could easily be her and share her identity crisis. Very educational about the Jewish Orthodox world as well ?

A very unique and interesting mystery about an Hasidic Jewish woman whose body is found embedded in a large scrap heap. It seems like the police don't want to investigate the murder because of the political influence of the Jewish community. A young stringer from a small New York newspaper is troubled about the crime seemingly being swept under the rug. She is tenacious about keeping the story in the newspaper and digging into the secretive world of the Hasidic community. I loved it, learned a lot and think that the book deserved all the acclaim that it got.

“Invisible City” is a debut novel by Julia Dahl. It is set in the Borough Park neighborhood of New York City. The neighborhood’s residents are Hasidic Jews - an insular community of ultra-Orthodox Jews. Rebekah Roberts, a stringer reporter for the Tribune newspaper, is told to report to a crime scene to get quotes from anyone she can find who will talk to her. When she gets there, the victim, who is bald and naked, is hanging from a crane.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Roberts continues to follow the story, and the more she finds out about the Hasidic community the more she comes to understand the motivations of her own mother who left the community to marry a non-Jew and have daughter, but who returned to the community shortly after her daughter, Rebekah, was born.

As Roberts’ assignment continues, the dead woman becomes a homicide victim. More and more, it looks like the husband killed his wife, but the cops aren’t investigating. In fact, not even an autopsy was performed.

In the end, you may be surprised, as I was, at who the murderer was.

Dahl has written a well-crafted novel that moves along at a sprightly pace. However, at times, it reads as if it needed a good editor to tighten it up. And while, she gives information about the Hasidic community, she doesn’t give it any depth. And finally, the book ends abruptly - obviously setting up a second book in this new series.

Rebekah has never known her mother, Aviva. In a period of rebellion against her Hasidic Jewish upbringing with its strict rules, Aviva ran off with Rebekah's father and became pregnant with her. Shortly after Rebekah's birth, her mother was reabsorbed into her religious community, never to contact Rebekah or her father again.

Rebekah is now a reporter for a tabloid newspaper in New York City, a job she accepted partly because of its proximity to where her mother came from, and might possibly still be living.

When a Hasidic woman is murdered, Rebekah is sent out on the story. Soon she gets in dangerously over her head, pulled in by a man who says he knew her mother and who is desperate to keep media attention on the case.

Through her investigation, Rebekah gains a clearer understanding of her mother's culture and some of the ways she might have struggled against it.

I really liked the glimpse this book offered into a culture I had little knowledge of beforehand. The mystery was well done, and the furtive way the members of the Hasidic community interacted with each other and with outsiders was interesting. I had hoped more of the mystery of Rebekah's mother would have come to light in this story, though, as it was such a big part of Rebekah's life.

Well-crafted debut thriller set in Brooklyn about the murder of a rebellious young Hasidic woman and the subsequent coverup, which reaches into some pretty high places. Stringer reporter Rebekah Roberts, herself abandoned by her Hasidic mother as an infant, is charged with getting information from an insular community that prefers not to reveal its more sordid secrets. The author, a former journalist herself, has written a fast paced and well researched novel with a plucky and likeable heroine and a cast of credible supporting characters. Looking forward to more books in the series.

At the start of INVISIBLE CITY, Rebekah Roberts, a stringer for the New York Tribune, is pulled from a mundane story about the bust of a brothel in the rear of an Internet café. Instead, she is assigned to investigate breaking news involving the discovery of the body of an unidentified naked woman in a local scrap yard. She has no idea that she's about to come face to face with a past about which she knows little and has tried hard to put far behind her, though it's seldom far from her mind.

The Smith Street Scrap Yard, where the body was found clasped in and dangling from the jaws of an excavator, is located in Borough Park, a Brooklyn neighborhood that's home to a tight-knit community of Hasidic Jews who work hard to dissociate themselves from the outside world. Thus, when crime strikes the area, the New York Police Department takes a backseat and allows the insular Jewish community to handle its own problems. Getting anyone to talk to her about the story is going to be difficult, if not impossible, in this congregation of ultra-Orthodox observers.

Fortunately, though, Rebekah has a secret that just might gain her entry into the Jewish community. Her mother, Aviva Kagan, hailed from Borough Park herself. Though she left Rebekah and Rebekah's Christian father behind in Orlando, Florida, just months after giving birth to Rebekah to return home, that makes Rebekah Jewish by descent. As a struggling young reporter eager to make a name for herself, she will use whatever means she can to learn who beat the mother of four, Rivka Mendelssohn, and dumped her body like yesterday's trash.

Early in her investigation, Rebekah encounters Saul Katz, an old friend of her father and mother, who has a stake in the outcome. Saul proves to be a friend, introducing Rebekah to those who may be willing to add information to the few sketchy details she's been able to obtain about Rivka. As Rebekah digs deeper, she finds that Rivka was questioning her faith and possibly looking for a way to leave behind Jewish orthodoxy and the Borough Park neighborhood without losing the children she loved dearly to her affluent husband, who wielded considerable power.

In the process of her investigative reporting, Rebekah can't help but wonder whatever happened to her mother and spend time imagining the life she lived subjected to the restrictive rules and regulations that must have governed her days in Borough Park. Can Rebekah remain impartial and report the most important story of her short career, or will she lose her perspective as she's haunted by ghosts from the past?

INVISIBLE CITY is the debut novel of Julia Dahl, who makes an impressive showing when she introduces us to her quirky main character. She paints a vivid picture of the 22-year-old woman who's willing to take on New York City to carve out the career she's always dreamed of and face the demons from the past that sometimes threaten to overtake her heart, mind and body.

Reviewed by Amie Taylor.

Julia Dahl may well become a prominent writer. She certainly shines at plotting. This is a book one can truly enjoy. Rebekah Roberts is a likeable and real character, one you'll want more of by the time you finish the book.

The difficulty is that the writing style is stiff and often hard to follow, prompting a reader to look back and reread sections. This of course does slow the book down.

All the same, we do have a skilled writer out on her first outing and she will be worth following.

An interesting look inside a rather insular religious community. Rebecca (Rebekah) was born to a Jewish mother, but raised by her non-Jewish father, so she is an outsider to the community. She becomes involved when reporting on a possible murder that seems tied to a prominent family within the Jewish community as part of a news lead she comes across as a stringer for a newspaper.

The story was fast paced, with some very interesting plot twists.

Recommended

I just finished Invisible City and loved it. From the first page I was drawn in. Wonderful, exciting, fascinating book. I could feel Rebekah being drawn inexorably to the victim, Rivka, and, by extension, to her long-lost mother Aviva. The details of a young stringer's job were so real and believable. And the voice of Rebekah struck me as strong at times, vulnerable at others. Crisp writing, accurate and believable story, a surprise ending, and a fascinating glimpse into a closed world. This book hit all the right notes for me.

"Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts)" by Julia Dahl is a story that I found to be an excellent, well written read. It didn't take long to get me into the flow of Dahl's writing. The story centers on the little known Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Hasidic community. As I Jew, I am appreciative of the research that obviously went into this story and the ability to make it believable and very engaging.

I'm looking forward to reading the next book by Julia Dahl!

I need more Rebekah and New York City - stat! What a unique story. Compelling story telling and dialogue. The cover is what got my interest, the plot is what made me order the book and the writing is what makes me want the next in the series. Rebekah is fresh out of college and looking for a job on a NYC newspaper, what she gets is a job as a stringer on a tabloid - but it's a start. Rebekah never knew her mother, she had abandoned Rebekah and her father after the birth to return to her Hasidic community in Brooklyn New York.

This book has so many wonderful aspects to it, great plotting, characters fully developed, evenly paced and believable story line. I have changed this to five stars after careful deliberation. My distaste for the author's use of indiscriminate profanity--especially by Rebekah, the lead female--is irrelevant. It may or may not be offensive others. This said, I apologize for my hasty words on the first review. It's not the language so much as the over-use of it that disturbed me. But as I said, this is my problem, and the author did a wonderful job for a debut novel.

Rebekah Roberts is a news reporter who involves herself in a murder mystery that eventually leads to answers she has had for a very long time. Being helped on one hand by some shady characters, and on the other hand by people she believes she can really trust, Rebekah goes from confident to frightened in a short time. Still, a good reporter, she goes after the truth.

The author is great, I'll read her again, and anyone who likes a good mystery, I recommend this to you.

Macmillan audio sent Invisible City for my review. I was eager to delve into this look at a culture about which I know very little.

Having never known her Jewish mother, Rebekah Roberts comes involved in the murder of a woman in the very community her mother disappeared from, years ago. While she's struggled with anger at her mother for abandoning both she and her father, as a new reporter, Rebekah is eager to get into this cloistered, suspicious community, and, not only investigate this current crime, but to get insight into her mother's life. However, she stumbles at almost every turn since It appears that police and authority are shunned by Hasidic Jews in favor of their own rules of law.

While I found the story very compelling, and the writing commendable for a first-time author, I was a bit thrown by the number or, what I considered, needless tags. "She said...she said...he said..." when it was clear to me which character was doing the talking. Maybe it's my writing background and sensitivity to this particular writing rule, but I found it very distracting to the point that I may have lost some of the story. While listening, I wondered if extra tags were added to the audio version that were excluded from the print version.

I was also a little disappointed that more time wasn't spent exploring this compelling, mysterious religious sect. I also expected more intrigue and payoff as to the mystery of Rebekah's mother's disappearance and life from the time she left her family.

Overall, Invisible City is a good read. Not a must-read, but worth the time.

Mary Cunningham, author, Cynthia's Attic Series (Tweens) and The Adventures of Max and Maddie (Tweens)