The Whole World

A research project turns deadly in Winslow's uneven debut. Expatriate American students Polly and Liv, in conjunction with British student Nick, are assisting blind Cambridge University professor Gretchen Paul to recapture her family history, organizing photographs of her childhood with her novelist mother. But secrets in Polly's and Gretchen's pasts, as well as a rivalry between Polly and Liv over Nick, quickly snowball into Nick's disappearance and two deaths. As told by Polly, Nick, a detective named Morris, Gretchen, and Liv, the ambitious tale presents difficulties in sorting out reliable voices and events from a clutter of peripheral characters and impressionistic storytelling. In addition, the American author's lack of dexterity with British English lends an unconvincing air to the British narratives, and leads the reader to wish the novel had been related solely by the haunted Polly, the most poignant and winning protagonist. (May)