Reviews for All That Is Mine I Carry With Me (Book)
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
A woman vanishes, leaving her kids to wonder whether their father is a murderer. It’s 2015, and author Philip Solomon has spent two years in search of an idea for his next project. Inspiration finally strikes while he’s out for drinks with his childhood friend Jeff Larkin. In 1975, Jeff’s younger sister, Miranda, came home from school to find the Larkins’ Newton, Massachusetts, house locked and her mother, Jane, missing. Jane’s purse was still in the front hall, so Miranda assumed she was running an errand. Hours passed, though, and Jane failed to return before night fell and Miranda’s brothers, Jeff and Alex, and father, Dan, arrived home. The cops and Jane’s sister, Kate, suspected Dan—a greedy, philandering criminal defense attorney—of foul play; without proof, however, the district attorney couldn’t charge Dan, and the investigation went cold. Construction workers found Jane’s body in 1993, but it provided no clues. As adults, the Larkin children now stand divided: Alex believes Dan’s claims of innocence, while Jeff and Miranda do not. Although the novel begins with Phil as its narrator, Landay breaks the Larkins’ tale into a series of “books,” each set in a different era of the case and featuring a different storyteller and style. This approach allows Landay to explore how Jane’s disappearance—and Dan’s presumed guilt—impacts key players over the course of their lives but regrettably also leaves most characters half-sketched and bleeds what should be a riveting mystery of tension and drive. Devastating family drama that adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
