When Irv Segal’s friends learned his personal story, which involved a fractious divorce that led to him being shunned by his ultra–Orthodox Jewish community, they invariably said the same thing: “You should write a book.”

To which Segal would respond, “I already have.”

That book, which became Secrets of the Rabbi’s Mafia, was ultimately published after 30 years of many “top-to-bottom” rewrites, a number of online classes and tutorials, and Segal keeping the faith after receiving enough rejection letters to paper a room.

Kirkus Reviews praises Segal’s debut novel, the first in a series, as “an engrossing detective story teeming with memorable characters.” The mystery introduces Jake Cooper, fresh off a divorce and transitioning from his ultra-Orthodox community to secular Chicago. He suspects something isn’t kosher in the case of Mindy Stein, the prime suspect in the death of her husband, Sender, who fell (or was he pushed?) from a rooftop. Jake, a Talmudic scholar, uses his knowledge of arcane laws and customs to solve the case.

The book, Segal says, was initially not intended for publication. He wrote it as therapy while undergoing his own marriage travails. He had never thought about writing, but as a teenager, he always loved to tinker with words and come up with stories, Segal admits. One summer when he was 14, he went to New York and stayed with his cousin, a diamond dealer on 47th Street in the diamond district. “I helped him out in the office,” Segal recalls. “His mother had a bookshelf full of Harry Kellerman’s Rabbi Small mysteries (including the Edgar Award–winning debut novel Friday the Rabbi Slept Late). I read through the whole bunch of them. I also enjoyed books by Faye Kellerman (creator of the Orthodox Jewish detective/not detective Rina Lazarus and her partner, police sergeant Peter Decker). At one point, I dissected one or two to determine the formula for writing these kinds of books.”

“I used that to later write the first draft of my then untitled first book. I sent it out to a bunch of agents and got a ton of rejection letters. But one of them took the time to write to me about what I should do to improve the book. One thing I saw in Faye Kellerman’s books was switching back and forth between first and third person. That agent told me that I had better pick a road and stick to it.” (He laughs.)

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Segal grew up in a less restrictive Jewish household in Detroit. His father was a public high school history and social studies teacher, while his mother was an Israeli folk dance teacher in a girls’ Orthodox private school. But, Segal says with a laugh, while some kids rebel and run away from home to join the circus, he ran away to join an ultraconservative community. He attended a rabbinical school in Cleveland and then in Chicago, where he married. His divorce from his first wife was all kinds of traumatic, complete with “ugly and untrue” rumors about him that got him shunned and led to bitter child custody trials.

From this he fashioned his first book, which he set in Chicago and for which he pulled experiences and characters. (One work colleague appears in the book as a child psychologist). Jake Cooper draws on Segal’s own Talmudic scholarship and expertise (Segal received a bachelor’s degree in Talmudic law), but he is also something of a wish fulfillment character, “who I wish I could be,” he says, especially in physique. “I don’t look anything like him.” He chuckles.

Segal’s first draft topped 1,000 pages; the final version is half that. After the barrage of agents’ critiques, he set the book aside. Decades passed until he got serious about crafting it into a market-ready novel.

This entailed correspondence courses on fiction writing, which he found helpful in crafting descriptions and generating suspense. He also watched educational videos for guidance on creating dialogue to help move the story forward. Sometimes, the story took turns that surprised even him. “My characters said things I did not anticipate until I was writing; they just came out.”

Kirkus especially appreciated this aspect of the book, noting, “Jake’s rounds of questionings really pop and enliven the story’s pace, as in this conversation Jake has with Mindy:

“Mrs. Goldstein told us that she heard more than one voice on the roof. Unless Sender had two personalities and was talking to himself, that points to at least one other person being present when he flew off the roof. If Sender was jumping, wouldn’t he prefer to do that in private? Why would he want someone watching him?”

“Jake, maybe we should concentrate on finding out who was there with him. That person could clear my name.”

“Maybe,” Jake agreed. “Unless that’s who pushed Sender off the roof.”

Secrets of the Rabbi’s Mafia comes out at a time when antisemitic incidents are on the rise. Segal says he was very mindful of that in writing about the ultra-Orthodox community. He said he wanted to portray it accurately and without judgment. “That’s why,” he says, “the title of the book is ‘the Rabbi’sMafia.’ That was intended to indicate it is not reflective of the entire community. There are bad apples in every basket, and Jake does receive help from some community members.”

Segal now lives in Arizona and works full time as a business analyst in a computer department. “I never wanted to become a rabbi necessarily,” he says. “I had to figure out what I would do for a living. Computer programming was a hot job market at that time. A lot of my friends I knew from Detroit were going to computer school and getting good jobs. I didn’t want to go to a traditional college, so I went to computer school. It’s been a good career and something I really enjoy. It involves critical and logical thinking, which is why I enjoyed Talmudic studies in college.”

After some 30 years, he says, it felt great to hold a physical copy of his first book in his hands.

One reason he waited so long to finish and publish it was his children were young and he feared backlash against them from the community. “But at this point,” he says, “they are grown with kids of their own.” He and his five children are in a good place, he reports. “I have 22 grandchildren.”

As for Segal, writing is something he would like to pursue full time once he retires. He has plans for Jake. A second book is completed, and he has several plots in mind for Book 3. “He will continue solving crimes for the community,” he says. “Because it is cloistered and they want their dirty laundry swept under the rug, Jake can use his knowledge of traditions and laws to go places where outside investigators can’t.”

Donald Liebenson is a Chicago-based writer who is published in the Washington Post, Town & Country, and on vanityfair.com.