As a mystery, it wasn’t particularly mysterious. Villain became obvious before the half-way point.

The heroine is an annoying, incompetent, thoughtless girl starting a job as a free-lance journalist in NYC. In spite of her best efforts, she can’t seem to manage simple interview questions or gather basic information. She goes to the city in hopes of meeting her Orthodox Jewish mother who abandoned the family when she was an infant. Her obsessive near-hatred for a woman she never met and who never played any role in her life borders on the psychopathic. At times, the writing began to smack of anti-semiticism.

The author spent a bizarre amount of time exploring how anxiety disrupted the girl-reporter’s digestive system. I don’t find reading about every intestinal gurgle or twitch particularly entertaining. The frequency with which this twenty-something turned to popping a pill to deal with stress is alarming, to say the least.

There were a couple of gratuitous sex scenes that did zero for the plot or any development. As with the description of physical reactions to anxiety, the author seems to struggle with handling a sex scene. Their appearances were abrupt, as were their endings. They were pointless and poorly done. They should not have been included.

Overall, a disappointing story not very well told. ( )

The first in a new series, this introduces Rebekah, a journalist who is assigned a murder story in a very cloistered Hassidic community in Brooklyn, where local rules bear more weight than city police and laws. ( )

Two and a half stars. I quite enjoyed this book, all the way up until the end. It was a good mystery and an interesting read--I feel like I learned a good bit about journalism basics and ultra-orthodox Jewish culture.

However: I absolutely hated the ending because it fell into tired cliches. Due to that alone, I would not recommend this book. ( )

The writing was flat and not at all stimulating. This is the kind of prose I would have enjoyed forty eight years ago in high school. Average at best. ( )

Found as 2015 Shamus Award Finalist. Book 1 of a series. Rebekah, not strictly a private investigator but a reporter, chases a story and solves a murder in the NYC Hasidic community. Excellent story and writing. Well worth following. ( )