A Review of Julia Dahl’s Invisible City

Hello! This week, I’m writing to you from Saint Petersburg, Florida. My surroundings are quite different from my usual Boston location, but my choice of books is the exact same. Per usual, I couldn’t resist getting sucked into a tantalizing thriller. It seems as though my desire for novels with scandalous secrets and sudden plot twists multiplies tenfold when I’m on vacation. Despite the contrast between my tranquil beach surroundings and the chilly, grim streets of NYC portrayed in Invisible City, it felt like a solid option for my next read.

Invisible City follows Rebekah, a reporter working an entry-level job in the Big Apple, as she investigates the grisly murder of a Hasidic Jewish woman whose body was found in a scrap yard. As Rebekah dives further and further into the details of Rivkah Mendelssohn’s life and unearths a pact of secrecy between the NYPD and Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox community, she also grapples with the disappearance of her long-lost mother, who abandoned her when she was a baby to return to her faith.

One of the book’s strongest attributes is its captivating portrayal of the fast-paced nature of reporting—or working as a “stringer,” as Rebekah puts it. In the various conversations she has with people both inside and outside of the Orthodox community, I could detect Rebekah’s commitment to doing her job well and her cynical attitude toward “workplace politics.” At the same time, Rebekah’s resentment toward her long-lost mother and her anxiety about infiltrating the conservative community her mother grew up in adds tension and depth to her journalistic work, appearing both directly and indirectly in her investigation. While some might argue that Dahl’s portrayal of the ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn is less than flattering, I think that introducing it through a young woman trying to come to terms with her Jewish roots is helpful, both for people with no knowledge of Judaism and people like me who are only half Jewish and have no more than a rudimentary knowledge of the religion. One passage that particularly stuck with me is Rebekah’s realization about the Hasidic Jews she spoke with over the course of her investigation:

This book is a thriller, meaning that Dahl is focused on developing a complex story that leaves viewers on the edge of their seats, but Rebekah’s personal struggle over her Jewish identity and her childhood abandonment adds a level of complexity that isn’t always present in the protagonists of thriller novels. I also appreciated a couple of her more “embarrassing” moments (like a tense argument involving two of her college friends in a bar) that make her into less of a serious “investigator” and more of a recent college graduate who is simply trying to do the best she can with the occupation she has.

In all honesty, though, I felt that the book fell a bit flat in the “element of surprise” that is so central to most thrillers. I found myself basically identifying Rivkah’s murderer before I even reached the book’s climax, and I think that Dahl could have developed a more elaborate cover-up scheme for Rivkah’s death. Additionally, I didn’t empathize at all with Rebekah’s anxiety disorder; Dahl seemed to toss this aspect of Rebekah’s personality in for dramatic effect when Rebekah’s complex family relationships alone are sufficient to make her a sympathetic character. Still, I enjoyed the process of uncovering a crime through the eyes of a protagonist who is my age, and I think that Dahl did an excellent job making her relatable for young readers.

Invisible City is part of a series with Rebekah Roberts as its star, and I must say that I liked Rebekah enough to progress to the next book. Will I get to it with the remainder of my vacation time? It’s certainly possible, as Dahl’s work is very easy and fun to read.