All That Is Mine I Carry with Me

Author Philip Solomon, the narrator of this uneven mystery from bestseller Landay (Defending Jacob), decides to write a novel about a cold case: in 1975, 10-year-old Miranda Larkin, a brother of whom was a childhood friend of Philip, returned to her Newton, Mass., home after school to find her mother, Jane, absent. The police launched a missing persons investigation, which morphed into a homicide inquiry focused on Jane’s defense attorney husband. No charges were brought. Decades later, Philip’s choice reawakens many old wounds for Miranda and ends up causing rifts within the Larkin family. Landay movingly explores the impact of Jane’s disappearance on Miranda, but the story of the Larkin family’s struggles over whether one of its members is a murderer isn’t particularly memorable. At one point, Philip holds forth on the port-wine stain on a police detective’s face, remarking, “I want to get off the subject, as well, because as a writer I hate that port-wine stain. It is a clumsy, ridiculous device and, believe me, I’m embarrassed by it.” This sort of writerly digression doesn’t add much. Landay has done better. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency. (Mar.)