Thrilled to be among some seriously badass writers on this list from LitHub. Lisa Levy writes of CONVICTION:
‘“I didn’t do it.” Four words scrawled on a piece of paper by a man serving a life sentence make their way into the hands of reporter Rebekah Roberts and a novel is born. Conviction is the third in Dahl’s series centered around young reporter Roberts but it’s a great leap forward in style, pacing, characterization, and plot. The point of view shifts, as does the time frame from when the murders were committed to the present. Dahl’s confidence in writing about the Hasidim and other Jewish sects in Brooklyn has gotten notably stronger: she describes their lives with authority and compassion, and her Jewish characters are also more complex. Conviction boasts a long list of complex and interesting characters of all walks of life, from the put upon Jewish sects in Crown Heights who feel oppressed by violence and shortchanged by the horrible conditions of their apartments to their African-American neighbors, who don’t understand the dress and the customs of their new neighbors. Dahl has written the novel about the Crown Heights conflict, and in these times when it takes so little to turn a neighborhood conflict into something bigger, it’s worth studying how she thinks it might have been averted.”