I could not get into this at all. The writing style, the viewpoints, and the assumptions that the reader would be some baby-obsessed anti-woman person were odd. Maybe something was lost in translation? Why have a pact not to have kids? Who cares what reproductive choices these women made? It was all so flimsy and silly.

They were a group of four when they were all in college. These women swore they would never have children. They would follow the example of "The Others" ... women the Torah saw as willingly child-free. The women have vocally chosen to be childless in a culture that demands motherhood from its women

Two of these women have been brutally killed. Each has been left with baby dolls glued to their hands ... Mother written in lipstick on their foreheads... One woman hanged herself.

One is left ... Sheila, who remains childless. She has become a major part of the police investigations. Is she the next targeted victim .. or is she a cold-blooded killer?

The story is told by Sheila in the present, her memories of twenty years ago ... how close these women were .. yet how far apart. Not all of them stayed true to their vows of childlessness. Secrets are slowly revealed .....

The Others is translated from the Hebrew by Daniella Zamir and is set in Tel Aviv where a serial killer has struck. Suspenseful from the first, it's nicely paced leading to an unexpected conclusion. The characters are finely drawn, unique in their culture and in their own lives. Well-written and kudos to Danielle Zamir for her error-free translation.

Many thanks to the author / Mulholland Books / Netgalley for the digital copy of this mystery/crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

The Others are an Israeli group of four college-age women. The women have vocally chosen to be childless in a culture that demands motherhood from its women. Unexpectedly, one of the group hangs herself.

It’s now fifteen years later, and another group member is dead. Murdered with a doll head glued to her hand and MOTHER written in blood-red lipstick on her forehead. Something happened at college all those years ago. Something sinister that just won’t stay dead...

I love that the plot included a poem foreshadowing the plot a la And Then There Were None.

“Four little girls, playing with their dollies, Snap! went one — and then they were three. Three little girls, playing with their dollies, Off came a head — as broken as could be. Two little dollies, one disappeared, and then there was one — just as she’d feared.”

Reading the poem, I couldn’t help noticing that bad things happen to the first two girls. But the other two events happen to the dollies. That is how wrapped up I was in solving the book’s mystery.

So, did I get the correct answer? Let’s just say I enjoyed the challenge. Plus, I learned about Orthodox Jewish culture and the Old Testament’s biblical women. Poor Lilith. I don’t understand how you can be a loose woman if there is only one man on Earth. I’ll google that later. Okay, I couldn’t wait and just googled it. There seems to be a lot of confusion about, and blaming being put onto, Lilith. Supposedly, her lover was an archangel— but only after Adam threw her out for wanting equal rights in their relationship. Once again, poor Lilith.

Sorry, back to my review of The Others. If you want to learn something as well as face a challenging, but fair, mystery, look no further. This book will check all those boxes and more. It even has a humorous aside when the characters lament that detective fiction doesn’t reflect real detectives’ methodologies. 4 stars for this diverse mystery.

Thanks to Mulholland Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

As young women in their twenties, Sheila and her friends eschew societies, and their religions view of their childless state as “barren”. They consider their childless state a form of freedom. Twenty years later, Sheila is dismayed to find one of those same friends, now a powerful feminist leading the way for equal rights, has been found murdered, a baby doll in her hands. The circle of friends who once saw themselves as invincible, the world theirs for the taking, has been diminished by reality, and it becomes increasingly possible that one of them may be a cold blooded killer