Run You Down (Faber & Faber, £8.99) is the second of Julia Dahl’s three novels about young New York tabloid journalist Rebekah Roberts.

Confusingly, the third in the series, Conviction, was published in the UK last year. That’s a shame because one of the main strands of Run You Down is Rebekah’s search for her frum Jewish mother, who abandoned her as a baby.

Readers of Conviction will already know how that turns out and, for them, the story’s undeniably emotional punch will be weakened. That aside, Run You Down works well as a mystery and as an exploration of the Strictly Orthodox community, specifically those who have gone “off the derech” — given up Chasidism for a life in the secular world.

Narrative duties are shared between Rebekah and her mother, Aviva, who describes how, as a teenager, she ran away from her ultra-frum family in Brooklyn to be with her non-Jewish boyfriend.

Having given birth to Rebekah, she suffers a crisis of conscience and returns to her family, leaving the baby to be brought up by the boyfriend.

Aviva’s family, embarrassed by her defection, decide that aliyah and marriage to a nice Israeli boy will get her off their hands.

But Aviva can’t settle in Israel and returns to the United States. Cut off from her Orthodox roots but unable to find her place in the non-Jewish world, she becomes a mother-figure for Charedi exiles who seek a haven in her house.

Meanwhile, Rebekah has become a reporter and dreams of one day meeting her errant mother. The chances of that happening are boosted when Rebekah is contacted by a Chasid from a small community in upstate New York. His wife, Pessie, has been found dead in the bath. Accidental death is the verdict but the husband is not so sure.

In trying to discover the truth, Rebekah has to push against resistance from the secretive Charedi community who would prefer not to make trouble. She also encounters a vile, white supremacist, and follows the trail of off-derech refuseniks who have banded together for mutual support.

The story gains real momentum as Rebekah’s investigation reaches a climax that is both poignant and shocking.

Julia Dahl knows how to create smart, suspenseful plots and, in Rebekah Roberts, has created a convincing, complex heroine. However, she is unlikely to sell many copies of Run You Down in Stamford Hill or Broughton Park.

alan montague