Why a Booktrail?
2000s: A searing exploration of the tensions between New York’s closed communities
Conviction
What you need to know before your trail
Journalist Rebekah Roberts works at New York City’s sleaziest tabloid, but dreams of bigger things. When she receives a letter from a convicted murderer claiming his innocence, she sees both a story she can’t ignore and, possibly, a chance.
Twenty-two years earlier, just after the Crown Heights riots exploded between the black and Jewish neighbourhoods in Brooklyn, DeShawn Perkins was convicted of the brutal murder of his adoptive family. Rebekah’s search for the truth is obscured by the decades that have elapsed: almost no one wants to talk about that grim, violent time in New York City?not even Saul Katz, a former NYPD cop and once her inside source.
Travel Guide
Crown Heights, New York
The city of New York is a battle ground for some.The novel’s events are based of the real life battles and tensions between Black and Jewish communities in Brooklyn in ’90s.
The riots began on August 19, 1991 after Gavin Cato, the son of two Guyanese immigrants, was struck and killed by a car in the motorcade of Hasidic rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
Rioting began very shortly after a Jewish volunteer ambulance was accused of refusing to treat the man’s injuries while removing members of the Schneerson’s motorcade instead.
The novel
In 1992, one years after the riots, Crown Height was still a disaster. A battle field and a garbage dump. It was getting hot again, and everyone seemed to hold their breath, waiting for the neighborhood to explode.
When a young boy enters the covered in blood and in shock. His foster mother, father and sister are found dead and his foster brother is arrested, eventually charged and convicted of the murders. Rebekah Roberts is asked to investigate this crime over twenty years later.
Ina magazine ,there is an article about the aftermath of a mass shooting in the ultra Othodox Jewish community of Roseville New York. There is also a police office who has a long history of civilian complains of excessive force, a mistaken killing.
This is the New York depicted in this novel. A city on edge and high on fear and retribution.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Conviction
Destination : New York City, Brooklyn Author/Guide: Julia Dahl Departure Time: 1990s
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