- Format: Kindle Edition
- Print Length: 320 pages
- Publisher: Minotaur Books (March 28 2017)
- Sold by: Macmillan CA
- Language: English
- ASIN: B01HB7GF4O
Book Description
In the summer of 1992, a year after riots exploded between black and Jewish neighbors in Crown Heights, a black family is brutally murdered in their Brooklyn home. A teenager is quickly convicted, and the justice system moves on.
Twenty-two years later, journalist Rebekah Roberts gets a letter: I didn't do it. Frustrated with her work at the city’s sleaziest tabloid, Rebekah starts to dig. But witnesses are missing, memories faded, and almost no one wants to talk about that grim, violent time in New York City—not even Saul Katz, a former cop and her source in Brooklyn’s insular Hasidic community.
So she goes it alone. And as she gets closer to the truth of that night, Rebekah finds herself in the path of a killer with two decades of secrets to protect.
From the author of the Edgar-nominated Invisible City comes another timely thriller that illuminates society’s darkest corners. Told in part through the eyes of a jittery eyewitness and the massacre’s sole survivor, Conviction examines the power—and cost—of community, loyalty, and denial.
“Conviction is New York City crime at its very best: gritty, realistic, culturally complex and sometimes really terrifying, but ultimately full of hope, with a heroine you can’t help but root for. Brava, Julia Dahl―I couldn’t put the damn thing down.”―Lisa Lutz
“Julia Dahl’s Conviction is a thrilling, utterly absorbing crime novel. With tender-tough reporter Rebekah Roberts at the story’s center, it jolts the heart, while also raising bigger, troubling questions―about criminal confessions, urban fear, and the many, many ways our moral and ethical convictions can both guide us and mislead us, and ultimately save us.”―Megan Abbott
About the Author
Julia Dahl was born in Fresno, Calif., to a Lutheran father and a Jewish mother. She currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Julia has been writing about crime since 2004 when Seventeen magazine sent her to cover the story of a young Birmingham, Ala., girl who had been killed by her mother. Since then, she has worked as a freelance reporter at the New York Post, the deputy managing editor of The Crime Report, and now covers crime and justice for CBSNews.com.
Julia's feature articles have appeared in Mental Floss, Salon, Pacific Standard, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and the Daily Beast, among others. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the H.F. Guggenheim Foundation and the Nation Institute for her reporting on criminal justice issues.
Before turning her attention to crime and justice, Julia was an editor at Redbook and Marie Claire. She began her career fact-checking at Entertainment Weekly.
INVISIBLE CITY is her first novel. She is at work on the sequel.
My Review
Conviction is the third Rebekah Roberts novel by author Julia Dahl. I have read the first two books in the series previously. Conviction could be a stand alone novel but I think that readers would enjoy reading the entire series.
Conviction tells the story of a young man, DeShawn, who was convicted unjustly of murdering his foster parents and his young foster sister. He has written a letter to Rebekah, who is a newspaper reporter, pleading his case that he has been incarcerated for over 20 years and that he is innocent. Rebekah quickly realizes that witnesses were ignored or lied and that DeShawn is innocent. But the main problem in the case is that her contact in the Hasidic community, Saul Katz, was a police officer involved in the original case back in 1992. Now, Saul is involved with Rebekah's mother so she is torn.
Conviction is a great read. I enjoy the New York setting which is very realistically portrayed by author Dahl. The characters are all interesting.
Highly recommend Conviction by Julia Dahl.
and the Embroidery Mystery series. The cake decorating series features a
heroine who is starting her life over in Southwest Virginia after a
nasty divorce. The 
features a heroine who recently moved to the Oregon coast to open an embroidery specialty shop. She also writes the 
as Gayle Leeson. 
, 
, and 
.
In her previous life she was CEO/Creative Director of her own marketing
firm and authored several screenplays. She is married to a professor of
Chinese art history, loves to travel, rides horses, enjoys fund raising
for various non-profits, and has two Chinese Shar-Pei dogs.
–
set in the historic district of Charleston and featuring Theodosia
Browning, owner of the Indigo Tea Shop. Theodosia is a savvy
entrepreneur, and pet mom to service dog Earl Grey. She’s also an
intelligent, focused amateur sleuth who doesn’t rely on coincidences or
inept police work to solve crimes. This charming series is highly
atmospheric and rife with the history and mystery that is Charleston.
– a slightly edgier series that take place in New Orleans. The main
character, Carmela, owns Memory Mine scrapbooking shop in the French
Quarter and is forever getting into trouble with her friend, Ava, who
owns the Juju Voodoo shop. New Orleans’ spooky above-ground cemeteries,
jazz clubs, bayous, and Mardi Gras madness make their presence known
here!
– set in Kindred, a fictional town in the Midwest. In a rehabbed Spur
station, Suzanne, Toni, and Petra, three semi-desperate, forty-plus
women have launched the Cackleberry Club. Eggs are the morning specialty
here and this cozy cafe even offers a book nook and yarn shop. Business
is good but murder could lead to the cafe’s undoing! This series offers
recipes, knitting, cake decorating, and a dash of spirituality.