Conviction is the third book in the Rebekah Roberts series by Julia Dahl. I read the first book, Invisible City, out of order, after reading Run You Down for a book club.

Conviction – Some Background

Rebekah Roberts is a reporter for the fictional paper, the New York Tribune. Through her position as a reporter, she gets embroiled in mysteries that your average lay person would not. While the first two books had her emeshed in the Hasidic community from which she has ties, Conviction sees her dealing more with a current hot button topic, the wrongful conviction of a black youth.

Conviction – The Story

The story starts in the past, with a victim of the crime stumbling into church covered in blood. From there, we travel back and forth in time, learning about the crime as it unfolds in the past, and watching Rebekah unravel it in the present. While this story does have some interaction with the Hasidic community, it’s not the crux of the story as in the first two books. The community is more a tangential plot point that helps to untangle the mystery.

The focus is on the conviction of the teen, foster son of the murdered parents and their young daughter who claims he did kill the only family he ever knew. Yet he’s 20+ years into serving a sentence for their death for a crime that coincidently Rebekah’s friend Saul Katz helped investigate.

Conviction – My Thoughts

I’m not a huge fan of the bouncing back and forth in time (personal preference). I like Rebekah as a heroine and I’d much prefer to stay with her in the present and solve the crime as she does rather than get the inside information by moving into different point of views and points of time.

Furthermore, I don’t remember what caused the killer to expose himself.  It caused the final unraveling of the mystery but I find it hard to believe. After literally getting away with murder for 20 years, I just don’t by that he would come forward to try to end the loose ends. It seemed out of character to me.

All that said, I enjoyed the book and I look forward to the next in the series.

Oh, and by the way, you can follow the author, Julia Dahl, on twitter. She’s pretty good replying to questions which is totally refreshing!