Genre Fiction
![William Landay - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B001HD0202.jpg)
All That Is Mine I Carry With Me: A Novel
A mother vanished. A father presumed guilty. There is no proof. There are no witnesses. For the children, there is only doubt. From the New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob. . . .
"Astonishing, powerful, and provocative, this book is worth the excruciating wait for another William Landay."-Louise Penny, author of A World of Curiosities
One afternoon in November 1975, ten-year-old Miranda Larkin comes home from school to find her house eerily quiet. Her mother is missing. Nothing else is out of place. There is no sign of struggle. Her mom's pocketbook remains in the front hall, in its usual spot.
So begins a mystery that will span a lifetime. What happened to Jane Larkin?
Investigators suspect Jane's husband. A criminal defense attorney, Dan Larkin would surely be an expert in outfoxing the police.
But no evidence is found linking him to a crime, and the case fades from the public's memory, a simmering, unresolved riddle. Jane's three children-Alex, Jeff, and Miranda-are left to be raised by the man who may have murdered their mother.
Two decades later, the remains of Jane Larkin are found. The investigation is awakened. The children, now grown, are forced to choose sides. With their father or against him? Guilty or innocent? And what happens if they are wrong?
A tale about family-family secrets and vengeance, but also family love-All That Is Mine I Carry With Me masterfully grapples with a primal question: When does loyalty reach its limit?
"Astonishing, powerful, and provocative, this book is worth the excruciating wait for another William Landay."-Louise Penny, author of A World of Curiosities
One afternoon in November 1975, ten-year-old Miranda Larkin comes home from school to find her house eerily quiet. Her mother is missing. Nothing else is out of place. There is no sign of struggle. Her mom's pocketbook remains in the front hall, in its usual spot.
So begins a mystery that will span a lifetime. What happened to Jane Larkin?
Investigators suspect Jane's husband. A criminal defense attorney, Dan Larkin would surely be an expert in outfoxing the police.
But no evidence is found linking him to a crime, and the case fades from the public's memory, a simmering, unresolved riddle. Jane's three children-Alex, Jeff, and Miranda-are left to be raised by the man who may have murdered their mother.
Two decades later, the remains of Jane Larkin are found. The investigation is awakened. The children, now grown, are forced to choose sides. With their father or against him? Guilty or innocent? And what happens if they are wrong?
A tale about family-family secrets and vengeance, but also family love-All That Is Mine I Carry With Me masterfully grapples with a primal question: When does loyalty reach its limit?
Editorial Reviews
"An enthralling mystery and a haunting family tragedy, heartbreaking in places, with deeply drawn characters and all the thrills of a classic whodunnit . . . I couldn't put this down. You won't be able to either."-Alex Michaelides, author of The Silent Patient and The Maidens
"Powerful and provocative, All That Is Mine I Carry With Me explores the dynamics of family and the ways in which vengeance can control and destroy the ones we love."-Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A World of Curiosities
"Masterful, original, and riveting, and the best book I've read in quite a while . . . With its subtle mystery and compelling portraits of how lives are transformed in the aftermath of violent crime, it possessed me from the very first line to the last page."-Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent and Suspect
"With All That Is Mine I Carry With Me, the masterful author of Defending Jacob has created something riveting, unforgettable, and original-unlike any other crime novel I've read."-Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of House on Fire
"Riveting, intense, and breathtakingly compelling . . . William Landay has brilliantly broken every rule of storytelling in this haunting masterpiece of a novel-part legal thriller, part family drama, and part literary tour de force."-Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of The House Guest
"Powerful and provocative, All That Is Mine I Carry With Me explores the dynamics of family and the ways in which vengeance can control and destroy the ones we love."-Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A World of Curiosities
"Masterful, original, and riveting, and the best book I've read in quite a while . . . With its subtle mystery and compelling portraits of how lives are transformed in the aftermath of violent crime, it possessed me from the very first line to the last page."-Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent and Suspect
"With All That Is Mine I Carry With Me, the masterful author of Defending Jacob has created something riveting, unforgettable, and original-unlike any other crime novel I've read."-Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of House on Fire
"Riveting, intense, and breathtakingly compelling . . . William Landay has brilliantly broken every rule of storytelling in this haunting masterpiece of a novel-part legal thriller, part family drama, and part literary tour de force."-Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of The House Guest
Readers Top Reviews
Maddogish
William Landay has found an untapped sweet spot with this book that reads like a behind the scenes of a true crime documentary. The book is told through multiple points of view with the hopes of finally solving a decades long cold case of a missing Mother, Jane. Obviously the book is a mystery novel but its also part police procedural and part family saga. As the reader you are not only invited to solve a case step by step, you are also invited on a ride to see how crime actually affects a family unit. A group of people that are supposed to be loyal and loving but become destroyed and crumble to dust under intense pressure and heartache. The book is divided into 3 points of view, the main narrator Phil is an author, and family friend, of one of the missing woman's son, Jeff. Phil begins to write his newest book on Jeff's family and he starts with writing as Jeff's younger sister Miranda and what she must have felt and experienced as the one who initially noticed her mother was missing. Miranda's story covers the early days of her mothers disappearance and the hunt for answers. The next point of view is Jeff, and all that happens after their mother's body is found. This is where the book takes on a heavy Law and Order, prime time TV drama feel. With only circumstantial evidence to work with, Jeff attempts a lawsuit in civil court hoping to provide some sort of justice for his mother. The last point of view is the one that gives this book closure (so ill leave a little mystery). The book is thoughtfully put together and easy to read. You get sucked into the family drama aspect of it all really fast. Like I said before this book plays out like a TV drama or an episode of 20/20 so its a comfort to read, despite the darker subject matter.
De Ann Acosta
We’ve all been there, the kids, the house, a job, it’s just too much. Mothers (and fathers) everywhere get to the breaking point and run away from all the responsibility. However, no one thinks that’s what happened to Jane Larkin. She adores her children, but now she’s definitely missing. The police and Jane’s sister think her husband killed her, and her children are caught in the middle. Miranda is the one to discover that her mother is missing when she arrives home after school to an empty house. At age 10, she’s heavily impacted by the loss of her mother. Her aunt Katie comes to stay and help out the family. I loved the relationship Miranda built with the lead investigator on the case, Tom Glover. And the husband, Dan, is a defense attorney. He knows some nefarious characters and knows how to hide a crime, but he insists he’s innocent. Without a body, witnesses, or evidence, the police can’t do much. The other siblings – Alex and Jeff – are on opposite sides. Alex firmly believes in their dad’s innocence and Jeff isn’t quite sure, but he thinks his dad might be behind things. As the years go by, the investigation dies down and it remains a mystery what really happened to Jane. Evidence turns up and the siblings have to choose how to proceed. As the family is torn apart again, would the truth come out this time? This one is told in an interesting manner, broken up into four parts. It starts with a friend of the family who is writing the Larkin family story. Then we get other points of view. I did like that the other points of view moved the story forward rather than repeating earlier parts of the book from another perspective. I thought it was a clever way to tell the story, but it took me a while to piece it together. I thought the ending was stunning. This one would make for an excellent book club choice and lead to a lot of discussion. I found it to be a bit of a slow burn, but I’m so glad I stayed with it and finished it.
Short Excerpt Teaser
After I finished writing my last novel, I fell into a long silence. You might call it writer's block, but most writers don't use that term or even understand it. When a writer goes quiet, nothing is blocking and nothing is being blocked. He is just empty. I don't know why this silence settled over me. Now that it's over, I don't like to think about it. I only know that for months, then a year, then two years, I could not write. It did no good to struggle; the more I struggled, the tighter the noose became. I could not write, then I could not sleep, then I could not bear my own presence and I began to think dark thoughts. I won't dwell on the details; in my profession, there is a saying that a writer's troubles are of interest only to other writers. I mention my silent period here only because it is the reason I wrote this book, for it was during this time, when I would have grabbed at any plausible idea for a story, that I got an email from an old friend named Jeff Larkin.
I have known Jeff since we were twelve years old. We met in September 1975 when we entered the seventh grade together at a very august and (to me) terrifying private school for boys, and we became pals almost immediately.
Let me say, I am uneasy about starting a book this way, with friends and confessions about my childhood. I am not nostalgic for that time in my life. I'm not even sure an honest account is possible. I do not trust my own memories. I tell myself so many stories about my past, as we all do. Worse-much worse-I don't think a writer ought to insert himself into his stories this way. It generally distracts more than it deepens. A writer's place is offstage. But what choice do I have? If I am going to tell this story, there is no way around a little autobiography. So:
When I was in sixth grade, my teacher called my parents, out of the blue, to suggest I was bored at school, which was certainly true. Had they considered sending me to a private school? Someplace rigorous and rules-y, where I would not continue to be (I will paraphrase here) a daydreamer and a smart-ass. My folks had never thought of it. They had both gone to public schools, and they presumed that fancy private schools were for Yankees. But Mom and Dad grasped the teacher's essential meaning: what I needed was a swift kick in the pants.
So the next fall I found myself at a school that probably had not looked much different twenty or even fifty years earlier. There were no girls. There was a school necktie. Spanish was not taught, but ancient Latin was required. The gym was called a "palestra"; the cafeteria, the "refectory." Portraits of mustachioed old "masters" hung in the hallways. There was a half-length painting of King Charles I gazing down at us with his needle nose and Vandyke beard, which alone might have cured me of daydreaming and smart-assery. Even my parents were dazzled and intimidated by the place. My mother warned me, "They smile at you, these WASPs, but I promise you, behind closed doors they call us kikes."
Jeff Larkin felt no such anxiety when he arrived at school. He was a prince. His older brother, Alex, was a senior and a three-sport star, with the heroic aura that surrounds high school athletes. Jeff's dad was well known too. He was a criminal defense lawyer, the kind that showed up in the newspaper or on TV standing beside a gangster, swaggering on about the incompetence of the police and the innocence of his wrongly accused client. There was a dark glamour to Mr. Larkin's work, at least before the catastrophe, when his association with violent crime stopped being a thing to admire. But that came later.
Forbidding as the school was, at least I had a new friend. Jeff and I hit it off right away. We were inseparable. It was one of those childhood friendships that was so natural and uncomplicated, we seemed to discover it more than we created it. I have no adult friendships like the one I had with Jeff. I am sure I never will. Once we slip on the armor of adulthood, we lose the ability to form that kind of naive, unqualified connection.
But forty years later, when I got Jeff's email in 2015, we had been out of touch for a very long time. He reached me by sending a fan email from my author website, just as any stranger would do.
"Hey," his email read in its entirety. "Loved the book. Mr. K_____ would be proud." (Mr. K_____ was a beloved English teacher.) "You up for a beer sometime?"
"I'm up for three," I emailed back. "Or forty-three. Just name the place."
The place he named was Doyle's, an ancient pub in Jamaica Plain, now gone. It was a nostalgic choice. In our twenties, Jeff and I hung out there night after night, shooting the shit. The place had changed over the years. It was bigger and br...
I have known Jeff since we were twelve years old. We met in September 1975 when we entered the seventh grade together at a very august and (to me) terrifying private school for boys, and we became pals almost immediately.
Let me say, I am uneasy about starting a book this way, with friends and confessions about my childhood. I am not nostalgic for that time in my life. I'm not even sure an honest account is possible. I do not trust my own memories. I tell myself so many stories about my past, as we all do. Worse-much worse-I don't think a writer ought to insert himself into his stories this way. It generally distracts more than it deepens. A writer's place is offstage. But what choice do I have? If I am going to tell this story, there is no way around a little autobiography. So:
When I was in sixth grade, my teacher called my parents, out of the blue, to suggest I was bored at school, which was certainly true. Had they considered sending me to a private school? Someplace rigorous and rules-y, where I would not continue to be (I will paraphrase here) a daydreamer and a smart-ass. My folks had never thought of it. They had both gone to public schools, and they presumed that fancy private schools were for Yankees. But Mom and Dad grasped the teacher's essential meaning: what I needed was a swift kick in the pants.
So the next fall I found myself at a school that probably had not looked much different twenty or even fifty years earlier. There were no girls. There was a school necktie. Spanish was not taught, but ancient Latin was required. The gym was called a "palestra"; the cafeteria, the "refectory." Portraits of mustachioed old "masters" hung in the hallways. There was a half-length painting of King Charles I gazing down at us with his needle nose and Vandyke beard, which alone might have cured me of daydreaming and smart-assery. Even my parents were dazzled and intimidated by the place. My mother warned me, "They smile at you, these WASPs, but I promise you, behind closed doors they call us kikes."
Jeff Larkin felt no such anxiety when he arrived at school. He was a prince. His older brother, Alex, was a senior and a three-sport star, with the heroic aura that surrounds high school athletes. Jeff's dad was well known too. He was a criminal defense lawyer, the kind that showed up in the newspaper or on TV standing beside a gangster, swaggering on about the incompetence of the police and the innocence of his wrongly accused client. There was a dark glamour to Mr. Larkin's work, at least before the catastrophe, when his association with violent crime stopped being a thing to admire. But that came later.
Forbidding as the school was, at least I had a new friend. Jeff and I hit it off right away. We were inseparable. It was one of those childhood friendships that was so natural and uncomplicated, we seemed to discover it more than we created it. I have no adult friendships like the one I had with Jeff. I am sure I never will. Once we slip on the armor of adulthood, we lose the ability to form that kind of naive, unqualified connection.
But forty years later, when I got Jeff's email in 2015, we had been out of touch for a very long time. He reached me by sending a fan email from my author website, just as any stranger would do.
"Hey," his email read in its entirety. "Loved the book. Mr. K_____ would be proud." (Mr. K_____ was a beloved English teacher.) "You up for a beer sometime?"
"I'm up for three," I emailed back. "Or forty-three. Just name the place."
The place he named was Doyle's, an ancient pub in Jamaica Plain, now gone. It was a nostalgic choice. In our twenties, Jeff and I hung out there night after night, shooting the shit. The place had changed over the years. It was bigger and br...
