Press

The Brooklyn Book Festival is this Sunday, and it has us thinking about what to read as the weather grows cooler. Who better to recommend a great book than one of Brooklyn’s many writers? We talked to a distinguished group of local authors about what they’re looking forward to curling up with–or baking from–this fall.

There’s only so much KCRW or KROQ one can take in an hour-long commute. If your drive to work is a slog, it’s time to finally take the dive into audiobooks, and with these new titles, you may even find yourself enjoying your time on the 101.

“On a frigid midwinter day in a Brooklyn scrap yard, young journalist Rebekah Roberts is looking at a mountain of old metal, out of which protrudes a foot: a foot attached, she will learn, to a naked, bald female who happens to have been, in life, a Hasidic Jew. In this fast-paced page-turner, Rebekah investigates

INVISIBLE CITY: This one was chosen by my daughter’s book club, and I admit it — I’m hooked. It’s the first in a series, a terrific story well told involving the murder of a Hasidic woman; a lead character, Rebekah Roberts, any reader will be quick to embrace, and a killer plot that will leave

Invisible City (Minotaur Books, May 2014) by Julia Dahl is a gripping crime story told from the angle of an investigating reporter. It is a suspenseful, well-paced read. But more fascinating than that is the glimpses the story offers into the reclusive Hasidic society. The author masterfully portrays the community with sympathy and understanding.

“I tried to bring alive what it’s like to be a tabloid reporter at a time when newspapers are dying,” said Julia Dahl, the 36-year-old author of the latter novel, Invisible City, which was published May 6 by Macmillan’s Minotaur Books.

“I have two books on me. One is Invisible City by Julia Dahl, and the other is Missing Out. Michael C. Hall actually lent it to me, and I might never give it back!”

As she pieces together the story behind the murder of a Hasidic woman, a young crime reporter is forced to confront her own demons, in Julia Dahl’s masterly, pitch-perfect first novel.

Bringing together the hyenas of tabloid journalism with the secretive, inwardly focused, self-protecting religious Jews, Dahl manages to demonize and humanize both, while delivering a riveting story. I sincerely hope there will be a sequel because after reading the last page, I wanted to know: What happens next?

Take a female newspaper reporter in Manhattan named Rebekah Roberts covering a murder in the Hasidic community — where a recent murder has everyone talking — and you’ve got a very good and probing debut novel by CBSNews.com reporter Julia Dahl.