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.

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