All That Is Mine I Carry with Me

Part crime drama, part psychological suspense, Landay’s new novel (long-awaited since 2012’s Defending Jacob) is absolutely unputdownable, with an ingenious plot and a cast of comprehensive, accurately depicted characters. It is just another Wednesday, mid-November of 1975, when 10-year-old Miranda Larkin comes home from school to an empty house. At first, she’s ecstatic to be by herself—until it gets later and later and still her mother is nowhere in sight. Two decades later, Jane Larkin’s remains are found. Her husband Dan, a slick and formidable defense attorney, is the main suspect, but there’s never been any proof. Jane’s sister is accusatory. The three children—Alex, who was 17 at the time of the disappearance; Jeff, who was 12; and Miranda—were the most affected by their mother’s absence. They are forced to choose sides, either for or against their father. Forty years after the disappearance, a novelist takes up the story, telling it through the lens of this fractured family, from day one through all the trials and tribulations until a bitter end.