What Is Mine: A Novel

Anne Holt
Warner Books (2006)
ISBN 0446578029
Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for Reader Views (8/06)

The plot could have been ripped from the headlines.  Child missing! Those words are every parent’s worse nightmare. Ann Holt brings us a suspenseful, believable book in “What Is Mine”.

Emilie is an eight-year-old girl.  She is abducted on her way home from school.  Soon another child is missing, a boy named Kim.  But this is only the beginning.  Parents are frantic whose child is next.  Then Kim is found dead in his parents’ basement with a note attached.  Police have few leads. 

Johanne Vik is an FBI profiler.  She is juggling her time between her work, her special needs daughter and her obsession with a forty year old case of missing children, a case that destroy a young man’s life.  Johanne is asked to assist in the investigation of the recent abductions, which she declines.  After more abductions, she is drawn into the investigation - But is it too late?  Emilie is still missing.

The experts say there are three reasons for child abduction “ransom, parent custody situations and pedophile.”  There is no ransom note, the parents are not involved, could it be a pedophile or could the experts be wrong.  Could there be a fourth reason.

Where are your children?  Who are they with?  Too often parents drop their children off at an event without checking to see if there is a responsible parent watching over them.  Too often parents leave children unattended.  We never know who is watching and waiting for the opportunity to snatch one of our precious children away from us.  Is there someone watching, waiting, hoping you will let down your guard?  Parents are responsible for the safety of their children. 

I enjoyed this book but found the plot to be slow in places.  The background information drags the plot down.  This is not a thriller.  A thriller takes you on a roller coaster ride with its ups and downs.  This has a plot that slowly develops much like watching a pot of water boil.  Slowly you see bubbles rise until at last, the bubbles become a full boil. 

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