The INVISIBLE CITY is Borough Park, New York, a large
community of Hasidic Jews, where on a Friday morning, a
young woman is found in a scrap yard, murdered, naked, her
head shaved. Rebekah Roberts, a young journalist was
already near the crime scene, so her newspaper tells her to
go for the story. Borough Park is also where Rebekah's
Jewish mother, Aviva Kagan, was born. The journalist and
her father were abandoned by Aviva when Rebekah was but 6
months old, she's never heard from her, but she has never
given up on trying to know where she is and why she left.
Rebekah has never felt particularly Jewish, her father
isn't, and she finds herself a bit at a loss faced with how
reticent the locals are. While trying to warm herself in a
small store, she asks a young boy, Yakov, if he knows
what's going on, but the boy's father tells her roughly to
leave his son alone. She then spots a Hasidic Jew riding a
bicycle; seeing him speak with some NYPD officers, she
decides to pry some information out of him. Saul Katz, is a
policeman, and is stunned upon looking at Rebekah, because
she looks very much like her mother, whom he knew.
It turns out the victim is a Hasidic Jew named Rivka
Mendelssohn, and the wife of the owner of the scrap yard.
Nothing is being done, the NYPD remains silent; Mendelssohn
is an important financial contributor to the community,
which in turn determines who gets elected. The deceased is
to be buried, according to Jewish law, within 24 hours, but
since it's the Sabbath, it has to be delayed. There is to
be no autopsy: her body was taken by Orthodox undertakers;
it seems the murder will simply be swept under the rug, and
the murderer go unpunished.
A friendly relationship soon develops between Saul and
Rebekah built upon their shared interest in the crime. Too
many secrets surround the woman's death, Saul is determined
to help her found out what happened and he has the means
to, plus he can tell her about her mother. Little by
little, secrets and half-truths rise to the surface as some
Borough Park residents slowly begin to confide in Rebekah.
And Saul has quite a few secrets of his own; is he to be
trusted, does he have a hidden agenda...
INVISIBLE CITY is an immersion in the colours, the smells,
the customs, the everyday life of the Hasidic community. We
are privy to an insider's view of a journalist's day-to-day
grind, the frustration and the dangers that go with the job
as well as a crime reporter's interaction with the police
department. The story is fast-paced and riveting; the
murder mystery is solved but Rebekah still doesn't have
answers to all her questions. Ms. Dahl's sensitive writing
is so effective that I can hardly wait to read more about
Rebekah, her life, her budding career, and her quest for
truth.
Just months after Rebekah Roberts was born, her mother, an
Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn, abandoned her Christian boyfriend
and newborn baby to return to her religion. Neither Rebekah
nor her father have heard from her since. Now a recent
college graduate, Rebekah has moved to New York City to
follow her dream of becoming a big-city reporter. But she’s
also drawn to the idea of being closer to her mother, who
might still be living in the Hasidic community in Brooklyn.
Then Rebekah is called to cover the story of a murdered
Hasidic woman. Rebekah’s shocked to learn that, because of
the NYPD’s habit of kowtowing to the powerful ultra-Orthodox
community, not only will the woman be buried without an
autopsy, her killer may get away with murder. Rebekah can’t
let the story end there. But getting to the truth won’t be
easy—even as she immerses herself in the cloistered world
where her mother grew up, it's clear that she's not welcome,
and everyone she meets has a secret to keep from an
outsider.
In her riveting debut Invisible City, journalist Julia Dahl
introduces a compelling new character in search of the truth
about a murder and an understanding of her own heritage.
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