A fascinating portrayal of a young woman coming to terms with her heritage while negotiating an unknown world.
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.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-04339-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
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