William Landay

I was not expecting to read this in three consecutive evenings, and I just had to finish it to arrive at the ending. Plus, the family dynamics were incredibly engaging and the writing throughout was top-notch.

The story centers around a family that loses its mother/wife without a trace. The two youngest children, Miranda and Jeff, are the most affected by her sudden disappearance. Their oldest brother, Alex, is the least mostly due to his age. How each child relates to their father, the chief show more suspect, is the underlying tension in this book.

The question that lasts throughout the book centers on the father/husband, Dan. Did he or didn't he? What was his relationship with his wife, Jane, like? And there is a brilliant section that is told from Jane's POV that leaves no doubt about whodunit.

Yet the focus of the book is more about proving in a court of law who the suspect is and how the children deal with their growing up without their mom. And when they reach adulthood, the battle lines are well-entrenched for who suspects their dad, and who does not.

During the initial investigation, the spotlight on Dan as the chief suspect gradually dims and the DA chooses not to charge him. When a case is finally brought, Dan's skills as a defense attorney come to the fore brilliantly. Jane's sister, who has never liked Dan, plays a behind-the-scenes role in this case and relates incidents that in hindsight show the obvious to any who should be looking.

The ending was incredible and grabbed me and stayed long past when I got to the last sentence. show less

I had wanted to read this offering by this wonderful author of one of my favorite books, Defending Jacob...for a while, when a review by a friend helped to move it up on by reading list...and I am so glad that it did. I think if there was just one single book that I could recommend this year...it would, without a doubt, be this one. It's a devastating family drama that stretches out over 18-years. Jane Larkin vanishes, leaving her three children to wonder if their father could be a murderer. show more 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, one of Jane's sons. In 1975, Jeff’s younger sister, Miranda, came home from school to find their Newton, Massachusetts, home locked and her mother, Jane, gone. Jane’s purse was still in the front hall, so Miranda assumed she was just running an errand, but strange to not take her purse. Hours passed, though, and Jane has still failed to return before night comes. The rest of the Larkin family, Miranda’s brothers, Jeff and Alex, and her father, Dan... have arrived home, but still no Jane. The police and Jane’s sister, Kate, immediately suspect Dan, who was no paragon of virtue, but was a known greedy, philandering criminal defense attorney, of foul play...but, there was no proof, therefore the district attorney couldn’t charge Dan with anything, and as you would suspect...the investigation went cold. Then, eighteen Years later, 1993...construction workers find a body...not just any body, but Jane’s body. Other than the undisputed fact that the body was obviously dead, and it didn't bury itself...it provided not a single clue. Jane's children are now adults and stand divided. Alex believes his father's claims of innocence, while Jeff and Miranda do not. Although the novel begins with Phil as its narrator, William 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 the author to explore how Jane’s disappearance...and Dan’s presumed guilt...impacts key players over the course of their lives. However, it also leaves most characters only half-drawn but... this may be what Landry intended as it allows the reader the satisfaction of drawing them themselves when we are forced to face the devastating impact that doubt and suspicion can have on a family. You have to read right until the end of the book to get the answers...and I'm certain each reader will get different ones. show less

The comparisons I’ve seen of “Defending Jacob” and “Presumed Innocent” are valid ones – but not for the reason I would have thought at first. True, the stories involve a prosecuting attorney embroiled in a murder that ends up hitting far too close to home…but more accurately for me, they are similar in that the main character in each remains emotionally closed off to the reader. It becomes increasingly obvious that there is something the main character, in this case Andy show more Barber, does not want the reader to know. There is some piece of the puzzle that he has that the reader does not.

“Like many people who have been exposed to violence, I confined my emotions within a narrow range. Never too high, never too low. Since I was a kid, I have always made sure of that. My emotions ran on steel rails.”

A classmate of Andy’s son Jacob is murdered, Andy begins working on the case…and then his son Jacob is arrested for the crime. Andy and his wife Laurie are completely blindsided by the charges and they are forced to look more closely at their son, their family and themselves as parents. There is no going back to the life they thought they led once the events are set in motion, and through Andy’s eyes, the reader is given a very tightly controlled view of his world.

“I thought it was important to be – at least to seem – a tower of strength and to encourage her to be strong as well. It was the only sensible approach: Tough it out, get through the trial, do whatever it takes to keep Jacob safe, then repair the emotional damage later. After. It was as if there was a place called After, and if I could just push my family across to that shore, everything would be all right.”

But of course, nothing is all right. The isolation, the doubt, the grief and worry eat away at Laurie and undermine Andy’s view of his role as a husband and father. They are forced to confront so much in the face of few facts and fewer insights into their son. Andy and Laurie’s happy marriage soon becomes a distant memory. Both Laurie and Andy wonder what parts of themselves are actually true and which parts are facades.

“All that ease, all that naturalness, all that credulous self-confidence. For years I had studied men like Burt French, despised them, copied them.”

I did wonder why the story was set in 2007. With the constant mentions of Facebook, Twitter and various I devices, it felt like it was set in present day…yet the events take place 4 years ago. I wasn’t sure why that was important, why the author made that choice when the story seems one that would work just as well in 2011.

“Defending Jacob” is a good legal thriller – a good version of “What If?” Because of Andy’s very careful doling out of facts, the reader remains engaged as the end draws closer, as the truth very slowly and carefully becomes clear. show less

When Jane Larkin, an ordinary housewife and mother, goes missing, her lawyer husband, Dan, is the likely suspect. However, after two decades of investigation, circumstantial evidence is enough to convict him in the public’s eye, yet not in a court of law. This book is a powerful study in dealing with loss and suspicion that can tear a family apart. Jane’s three children, Miranda, Jeff, and Alex are caught between avenging their mother’s murder and forgiving their father. The author’s show more unconventional style of not using quotation marks for dialogue and switching POV in three books instead of using chapters is different but not necessarily distracting. I found this story intensely emotional and captivating, as the book explores the relationships between husbands and wives and presents plenty of motivation for wanting to get rid of your spouse. Women, of course, always seem to fall into the victim category. I found Dan’s personality repellent and his chilling metaphor of wives becoming “sinking stocks over time” hard to stomach, which made the ending particularly satisfying for me. show less