About the Author

Born in Lisbon, Ruth grew up in Portugal, Spain and Israel. A graduate of Bar Ilan University, she earned a PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology – San Diego. Dr. Shidlo currently lives in Tel Aviv, where she works as a psychologist and trauma therapist. The Rosebush Murders (2012) is her debut novel. The second Helen Mirkin novel, Murder in the Choir, was published in 2016. Both books are set in Israel. In the third book in the series, Preventable Tragedies (2017), Helen’s work takes her to Europe.

All three books are available through Amazon and other sellers.

She recently edited The Enigma of Childhood by Dr. Ronnie Solan (Karnac, 2015).

A somatic experiencing practitioner (SEP), she is also on the team of the International Healing-Trauma Institute (ITI – Israel) and assists with SE trainings. Via ITI, she worked as an emotional first aid (EmotionAid) volunteer in Sderot, a city in the south of Israel that is vulnerable to recurring missile attacks from the Gaza Strip. She is currently involved in a project aimed at making these tools accessible to medical teams treating Corona patients in Israel.

In the past, Ruth founded and was active in Shorashim: Israeli Donor Families (a community-based, volunteer-driven organization aimed at advocating the rights of donor conceived offspring (children, adolescents and adults) in Israel and abroad. Her views on the subject have been published in BioNews, Ha’aretz, Medicine and Law, and Assia. She was also interviewed for Wendy Kramer and Naomi Cahn’s book, Finding Our Families. A First-of-Its-Kind Book for Donor-Conceived People and Their Families (Penguin/Avery, 2013), as well as by Israeli TV and an Austrian film maker.

In addition to the Helen Mirkin detective series, Ruth is working on a stand-alone novel aimed at both young adults and adults. It deals with searing questions of identity and the search for biological roots.