The Child Who

Feb 12, 2012 Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, mystery-thriller, february-2012-list

An engaging story involving a twelve year old boy accused of the murder and rape of a young girl. We follow the solicitor in his taking on of the case and the turmoil and hate he faces representing a young boy accused of murder. The public hate him as they know of his identity and the solicitor is bombarded by hate and finger pointing. His wife and a young daughter soon find themselves having to face problems, due to his high profile and sensitive case. It was an interesting read and gives you a...more

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Jan 31, 2013 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

THE CHILD WHO. (2012). Simon Lelic. ****.
This was the author’s second novel, and another fine example of his writing skill. In this tale, a solicitor from a law firm just happens to answer the phone at his office and is told of the need of legal services for a young boy, and is asked to come down to the station. When he gets there, he Daniel Blake, a twelve-year-old boy prime suspect in the murder of a twelve-year-old girl. The murder was particularly horrible; the girl was killed by blunt impa...more

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May 16, 2012 Andrew Macrae rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"The Child Who" by Simon Lelic

A troubled boy kills another child in the English city of Exeter. For Leo Curtice, an ambitious thirty-something lawyer with a small law firm, the case looks like his ticket to the big time. But Leo has no idea of the turmoil about to be unleashed as a community enraged by the killing finds Leo, his wife Megan, and their daughter Ellie an easy target for their anger.

Twelve-year-old Daniel Blake has confessed to the sadistic killing of Felicity Forbes, but now what i...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Louise Dix rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As an avid reader of Lelic's work I had been looking forward to his third novel and I wasn't disappointed. The Child Who takes what, in less capable hands, could be a tabloid gore-fest, the murder of a school girl by another child, and offers a complex and insightful portrayal of those involved in the case. By focusing on Leo Curtice, the solicitor tasked with defending the accused child, Lelic does not seek to provide easy answers - that is not his style - instead he forces the reader to questi...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Jessica Gaskin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An intriging plot line, exploring similar themes to We Need to Talk About Kevin but from a different angle. The responsibility of a child for their actions, when their actions are deplorable. At what age does a child really become responsible, and if they are not fully responsible then who is? The role of the parents and home life is explored here but not as fully. The role of society and the responsibility of society take centre stage here, with the novel focussing on the many times the child h...more

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Mar 01, 2012 Christina (A Reader of Fictions) rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: finishedreviewcopy

My thoughts on this one were rather mixed. I'll start with the good: the subject matter. The subject and the ethical questions associated with dealing with crimes by youth is fascinating to me. Given the horrid nature of his crimes, should Daniel be tried as an adult? Does his youth mean that he shouldn't be culpable?

Reading this book really made me think about these questions and innumerable others. I also thought, too, about the reactions people had to Daniel's crime. All of the flak that Leo...more My thoughts on this one were rather mixed. I'll start with the good: the subject matter. The subject and the ethical questions associated with dealing with crimes by youth is fascinating to me. Given the horrid nature of his crimes, should Daniel be tried as an adult? Does his youth mean that he shouldn't be culpable?

Reading this book really made me think about these questions and innumerable others. I also thought, too, about the reactions people had to Daniel's crime. All of the flak that Leo took for trying to do his job and be this kid's solicitor was ridiculous. I just fail to understand why anyone would send him hate mail or protest him for fulfilling his role in the country's justice system.

Moving into the problems here...I think I would have preferred this if it were from the perspective of a child psychologist or something like that. Leo's understanding of Daniel is limited, and we see through his eyes any time Daniel's actually present. Even when he gets Daniel to talk, he doesn't know the right questions to ask or have any analysis to bear. Even when he gets a psychologist to speak with Daniel and she diagnoses a couple of things, nothing really comes of it because Leo isn't smart enough or isn't the right kind of smart to do anything with it.

What really got to me, though, was the writing style. For one thing, the sentences are really simple, which could be a stylistic decision, but just made the whole thing choppy and hard to read. Also, the third person narration tended to follow along with a character, but who changed from chapter to chapter. Lots of authors use this technique, but, here, it was rather difficult to parse. I think the reason it was so troublesome for me was that, rather than using the character's name at the beginning of each section, Lelic always refers to them merely as he or she, so I spent several sentences/paragraphs of each one trying to determine who the heck I was reading about.

On top of that, the story jumped around in time, which, again, can be used effectively but was not here. Instead of amping up the shock value or creating interesting comparisons, this method created confusion and removed the surprises. There was one twist of sorts, but I wasn't interested enough in the characters to care about it particularly.

All of that aside, Lelic has won awards for his mystery writing, so don't dismiss him based solely on my review. His style just doesn't work for me personally. If you think you might like this, give it a try, or check out one of his other books. His style just doesn't work for me personally.(less)

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Aug 19, 2012 Lucy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2012

This book was not what I expected. Maybe partly because I hadn’t re-read the synopsis before I started reading the actual book (although that is only usually something I do if I can’t decide what to read.
It wasn’t that the book was bad, it’s just it really didn’t reach it’s full potential. I expected much more about Daniel, and his reasoning behind the murder, and that was the part I was really interested in. Actually the whole Daniel thin felt like it had been skimmed over and the focus was muc...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Julie (julie37619) rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, psychology, thriller

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The Child Who is a novel about a small-time defense attorney who answers a chance phone call and winds up with a case that gathers national media attention. Leo Curtice is assigned the defense of twelve year old Daniel Blake, who is accused of killing a young girl. But the media frenzy leads to a community who wants blood for the horrible crime and soon Curtice finds his family threatened.

Writing
I was impressed with the writing right up until the end of the book, when the final plot twist just k...more The Child Who is a novel about a small-time defense attorney who answers a chance phone call and winds up with a case that gathers national media attention. Leo Curtice is assigned the defense of twelve year old Daniel Blake, who is accused of killing a young girl. But the media frenzy leads to a community who wants blood for the horrible crime and soon Curtice finds his family threatened.

Writing
I was impressed with the writing right up until the end of the book, when the final plot twist just killed it for me. The ending ruined everything about the writing for me - the suspense of the novel, the reason for caring about the characters, everything. Because the book is told in flashbacks, we know from the beginning that Curtice's family has been torn apart by the case - his daughter has been abducted and never found. The entire book hinges on this, and then (highlight to see spoilers): at the end there is a miraculous discovery that magically fixes everything so the family can be a family again.I was not pleased.

But other than that, I found the writing to really be nice and lean towards the literary side of things, which is always nice in a thriller.

Entertainment Value
It's not a thriller, but I was definitely in suspense over the ending until I actually reached the ending. I won't say that I hated the book, I was just really let down. While I was reading, I was loving the story. I liked the twelve year old boy as a character (I have thing for evil children) and I really liked Leo Curtice and the position he was put in where he had to choose between his duty as a lawyer/the largest case of his career and his responsibility to protect his family. I just really disliked the neat ending. The book was real and gritty and harsh, but the ending took away from that and made it really trite.

Overall
It's a good suspense book. And I loved that it leaned more towards an introspective, literary plot than a chop 'em up, gory, murder fest that many thrillers become. It left me tense and anxious to see what would happen. But then when it wrapped up and the secrets were revealed, I was greatly underwhelmed. I feel like readers who enjoy a neatly tied up ending will be put off by the literary aspects of this book and those who are attracted to the literary aspects will be put off my the very simple ending. (less)

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Feb 14, 2012 Fred Hughes rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review is based on a free copy of this book supplied to me by the Publisher through the Goodreads First Reader Program

This is the story of the murder of an 11 year old girl by a 12 year old boy. The impact that had on the boy and his family; and the lawyer hired to defend him, and his family.

The main characters in the book are:

Leonard (Leo) Curtice – lawyer for Daniel

Daniel Blake – 12 year old accused murderer

Megan Curtice – Leo’s long suffering wife

Ellie Curtice – Leo’s 15 year old daughte...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Aubrey Tate rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-fiction

After I read a book I generally know what I'm going to rate it, but even then I have to ask myself what led me to that rating? I also like to ask myself, did this book resonate with me later? For example, I have gone back and given books five stars that I previously gave four because I simply couldn't get the book out of my head (like Ender's Game), days and months later. For me, this one was just okay. It didn't stay with me and is forgettable.

There are a few reasons why it was only "okay" for...more After I read a book I generally know what I'm going to rate it, but even then I have to ask myself what led me to that rating? I also like to ask myself, did this book resonate with me later? For example, I have gone back and given books five stars that I previously gave four because I simply couldn't get the book out of my head (like Ender's Game), days and months later. For me, this one was just okay. It didn't stay with me and is forgettable.

There are a few reasons why it was only "okay" for me. First off, I was excited reading the synopsis about a 12 year old boy who is accused of killing an eleven year old girl. That intrigued me and I wanted to know where the author was going to go with it. The book focused on that boy's attorney (Leo), not the boy himself which I ended up liking. At the same time, part of me wanted more on why the boy did it, because the boy admitted he did it. I did like that the book shed light on "innocent until proven guilty" and on how lawyers defending killers are treated.

However, the first reason I didn't like it was Lelic's excessive use of pronouns, especially in the beginning of chapters, instead of character names. So I would have to go back and reread to figure out who he was talking about, and this was important because this book was full of flashbacks. I hadn't realized that at first because of how it was written.

The characters were okay but really the main character, Daniel's attorney irritated me, at how easily he would push away his family (even though they essentially plead with him) and make Daniel's case his life. I mean, in a way I understand, but he pushed them away at a time when their lives were being threatened. That should have been enough and didn't feel realistic to me. I also didn't feel realistic that a mysterious man would pop up and scare his wife and Leo would get threatening letters but he wouldn't even call the cops. Lastly, the ending was too neatly put together and really summed up for me the book's status of just "okay." However, I'm not going to write Lelic off because I know he's gotten a lot of props for his other novels, so I will at least try one more.(less)

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Jan 19, 2012 Ellie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very emotional, the pain of the adults and the child in such an awful situation tangible. No spoiler but the ending was unanticipated. The book raised questions for me about how difficult society finds it to cope with children who kill; the perpetrator is also a victim who deserves compassion.

I strongly recommend that if you feel this book speaks to you, read Gitta Sereny on the case of Mary Bell.

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Jul 28, 2012 Louise rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

such a difficult subject to write about, and even as a very brief review, I feel a bit odd saying there should have been more detail of the crime, but ultimately I was left a little disappointed.

it was a great idea, but everything could have been done a bit more in depth, from why Daniel was who he was, and why he did what he did, it all felt a bit skimmed over the surface to me.
The same with lawyer Leo, it could have been a brilliant story of his conflict between his wanting to do the right thi...more

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Jul 26, 2012 Ellie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: brit, contemporary, crime, european, family-life, psychology, 2012

This dark tale of a child who murdered another child, and the effect it had on the family of the solicitor representing the case was interesting but I felt something was lacking, hence the lowish rating. Without doubt it made me question "Are people inherently evil" and the extent to which experiences and conditioning are instead very relevant (I believe they are) and perhaps I was interested in exploring that more than the novel did.

The author had read on the subject of child who kill other ch...more

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Apr 11, 2012 Rebecca Martin rated it 3 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book more than I did. The narrative is set up so that it goes back and forth in time which, yes, creates suspense, but it also creates unnecessary confusion. Half the time I couldn't figure out where I was in the story and this confusion really didn't seem to serve a purpose. If the story had been told relatively chronologically, there would have been plenty of suspense and still a real surprise at the end. I think that the main thing that made me tired after I had read abo...more

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Apr 18, 2013 P.d.r. Lindsay rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thrillers

Simon Lelic has produced quite a read. It's a thriller and a half indeed but not a quick or easy read. The story jumps in time over a period of years and there is no concession to the reader with dates or asterisks. You read this novel with an alert mind.

The story explores what happens when a dreadful crime is committed and the perpetrator is young, underage, so that there is a great deal of public rage. In particular the plot follows the chosen solicitor who has to find a defense for his client...more

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Dec 05, 2012 Meera rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a little disappointing, I had really enjoyed this author's previous book, 'Rupture' and was expecting a similarly different and thought provoking view on a horrific crime. This story tells the tale of a lawyer, Leo, who is defending a young boy who murdered a classmate, and how his decision to do this impacts on his family life. I found the story frustrating, as there wasn't much of a sense of suspense, and Leo wasn't that exciting a character, and the author seemed to deal with the mor...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Kai rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads

Child Who brings a good point of questioning the moral of whether the client or the family come first. Leo who is an attorney never represented anyone or made any difference in law. He received a phone called one day and was put into the spotlight of representing Daniel Blake, a 12-years old who is to have killed an eleven year old girl Felicity. Soon he is receiving threatening mails to drop the Daniel Blake's case or his family will be harm. He kept all of this away from his wife Megan and dau...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Nicole Lundrigan rated it 4 of 5 stars

A great read – left me with lots to consider. Only (very minor) challenge was I found it difficult to get my bearings at the beginning of each chapter. After mulling it over a bit, I'm wondering if that was the intent. That introductory haziness.

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Apr 15, 2013 Mary Kay rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Can you not like a book, but still be compelled to read it in one-two settings? This is the case with this book! It has a driving plot that makes it hard to put down, but I found that I was reading to make sense of puzzle pieces that never quite came together. The premise is pretty interesting, a "child killer" in the vein of We Need to Talk About Kevin or The Good Father, only told from the defending lawyer's point of view (and taking place in the UK). The lawyer's family -- and their unravelin...more

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May 02, 2013 Amy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book tagline is “what would cause a child to commit the most horrific crime”. The story seems to be uncertain if it wants to be a commentary on societal shortcomings of government agencies and its legal system; how the public reacts to horrific crimes; how stress can affect family relations already strained or a mystery of dead and missing children. The effort to combine all of these storylines results in the entire plot being superficial and the characters unsympathetic. The last few chapte...more

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Sep 08, 2012 Alejandra rated it 3 of 5 stars

What a good book with such a disappointing ending! It truly made me angry and made me want to punch the author in the throat for copping out such a bleh ending. Anyway, this is the story of Leo, who is a lawyer defending 12 year old Daniel. Daniel killed Felicity, one of his fellow classmates in cold blood. Next thing you know, Leo, his wife and daughter are caught up in the rage that fills every other person who strongly disagrees in Leo defending a psycho murderer. The story is very engaging a...more

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Mar 13, 2012 S. J. Bolton rated it 4 of 5 stars

Simon Lelic seems compelled to ask why. (He was probably a very annoying toddler.) His books are neither mysteries nor thrillers in the traditional sense, but rather explorations of the escalating pressures that can drive an ordinary person to commit an act of extraordinary evil. RUPTURE considered the aftermath of a mass shooting in a secondary school. THE CHILD WHO takes place in the weeks and months following the savage murder of one child by another in the same community.

Our main character,...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Fleme Varkey rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is as strange and gripping as it gets. The Child Who’s content ensnares you so completely that you will be bound to follow the case to the end. When I opened the book titled The Child Who I was not prepared for the avalanche that lay within. Stunning, thought-provoking call it what you may but Simon Lelic sure knows how to hold the readers’ attention. When you have so many stories of crime and assault all around you, one tends to become insensitised to what the truth actually is. It’s rarel...more This is as strange and gripping as it gets. The Child Who’s content ensnares you so completely that you will be bound to follow the case to the end. When I opened the book titled The Child Who I was not prepared for the avalanche that lay within. Stunning, thought-provoking call it what you may but Simon Lelic sure knows how to hold the readers’ attention. When you have so many stories of crime and assault all around you, one tends to become insensitised to what the truth actually is. It’s rarely that a story comes out and knocks the wind out of you. For me The Child Who is that story. The author’s previous books The Rupture and Felicity also dealt with some uncomfortable issues but with The Child Who Simon takes it a notch higher. The epigraph — a few chilling lines from Blake Simpson’s As If set the tone for the story. David Blake a 12-year-old has been discovered to have brutally killed a 11-year-old and many insinuate, he had ‘almost raped her’. While the reader is still trying to digest this fact, hoping that somewhere, something has gone wrong, David confesses to doing it Lelic drew inspiration from hearing a solicitor talk about the Jamie Bugler murder. This murder had shaken the foundations of law itself. On February 12, 1993 at a shopping center in Liverpool, England unfolded a chilling crime. Two harmless looking 10-year-old boys Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were seen walking out of the center with a two-year-old toddler, whom the world later came to know as Jamie Bugler. The boys left a horribly mutilated body of Jamie on the railway tracks and even their nonchalant behaviour after committing the crime was shocking. They were sentenced to custody until they reached adulthood, initially until the age of 18, and were released in June 2001.
Lelic uses this as a peg for his story and spins into it the trauma of the families that are suffering as a result of David’s crime. What is suprising is that along with David another man’s life is going downhill — that of his lawyer Leonard Curtice. This turns out to be the most high profile and challenging case of his career. What Lelic attempts to show is that Daniel Blake is not the monster that everyone makes him out to be. What people do not realise he says is that he might have been a victim himself. With the mob baying for Daniel’s blood, will Leonard manage to keep things real? One of the most intriguing things about Lelic’s novel is that it does not take any sides, nor does it condemn David. The author gives the reader the freedom to decide. The Child Who definitely will count as one of Lelic’s best but there is something he can improve upon and that is loose endings.(less)

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May 07, 2012 Terryann rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: grownups-fiction, advanced-copy, nook

a very interesting read. i liked the different perspective. no one really thinks about what it must be like for the lawyer who is defending the 'monster' and what it might do to his or her life. i liked the way the book was written and the perspective and pace. i think i might have done with a bit more character development, but don't know quite what that would have done to the elements i liked. i was a bit disappointed in the ending, it was a thriller and then...it wasn't. over all, i would rec...more

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Feb 22, 2012 David Hebblethwaite rated it 4 of 5 stars

Simon Lelic is developing a track record as a novelist who approaches his subject matter from interesting angles and explores thorny moral issues, notably in his 2010 debut Rupture, a multi-viewpoint examination of what drove a teacher to open fire in a school assembly. Lelic turned the conspiracy thriller inside-out in last year’s The Facility; now he has returned to contemporary crime with The Child Who. This new novel concerns the case of a twelve-year-old boy who killed a girl at his school;...more Simon Lelic is developing a track record as a novelist who approaches his subject matter from interesting angles and explores thorny moral issues, notably in his 2010 debut Rupture, a multi-viewpoint examination of what drove a teacher to open fire in a school assembly. Lelic turned the conspiracy thriller inside-out in last year’s The Facility; now he has returned to contemporary crime with The Child Who. This new novel concerns the case of a twelve-year-old boy who killed a girl at his school; though Lelic’s main focus is neither victim nor murderer, but the boy’s lawyer.

Leo Curtice is the solicitor who takes the call and ends up representing Daniel Blake, in what becomesExeter’s most attention-grabbing trial in years. From the beginning, Lelic makes clear what a double-edged sword this assignment is for Leo: on the one hand, such a high-profile case is an opportunity that comes around very rarely; on the other, the job is repugnant, because there is no doubt of the boy’s guilt. Leo isn’t entirely comfortable with viewing the case as an ‘opportunity’, and struggles to justify his involvement to himself and others; his purpose seems nebulous even when he discusses it with Daniel Blake, and reveals that it’s not so much a matter of defending the boy as presenting his culpability in the least worst light.

The Child Who builds into a study of a man under emotional pressure from all sides (we learn relatively early on that Leo’s involvement in the case rips his family apart).

Leo deals with negative reactions by focusing in on his work, and there’s a strong sense that he is using the formal words of his profession as a shield; when Leo tries to explain to his daughter Ellie why he’s representing Blake, all his talk of habeus corpus does not satisfy her when she just wants to know why it’s he in particular who has the case. And Leo is still falling into the same pattern of behaviour when his wife Megan is about to leave him:

‘I need a break. From the house as much as anything. And it’s clear you need to focus. If you really feel you need to do this, it would be better, for your sake, if you did it without any more . . . distractions.’

Leo nodded – not conceding the point, just bobbing past it. ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘I was looking at some recent cases. At the coverage in the press once things actually got underway. And what happens is, when a trial begins, there’s actually less attention in a way because of all the restric . . .’

Leo stopped himself. From the look on Megan’s face, the coverage was not the point.

‘I’ll be in the kitchen,’ she said. ‘Let me know when you’re ready.’

For all that Leo acts in this way, he finds it no easier to deal with being on the receiving end of similar behaviour; he is himself frustrated by the rhetorical fencing of Ellie’s headteacher. This is one of the most interesting things Lelic does in The Child Who: to gradually place Leo in the same position as the parents of Felicity Forbes (the girl killed by Blake), and examine his response. Leo begins to receive threatening notes, then Ellie disappears; and his feelings towards the anonymous culprit are no less hostile than others’ have been towards Daniel Blake.

There are several striking scenes in which Lelic presents emotionally-charged events from a distance, because of Leo’s perspective. There’s a violent protest when Daniel is driven to court for the first time, but we experience it all from inside his police van, where it becomes particularly abstract and menacing for Leo. Felicity Forbes’s funeral is a national event, but, seen on television (and as the only glimpse we get of Felicity’s family), it could as well be happening in a different reality. In keeping with the idea of Leo’s personal life and work mirroring each other, it might be considered that eventually he becomes as distanced from his family as he was from external views of the case. In its complex portrait of the protagonist and his situation, The Child Who might just be Lelic’s most effective novel yet.

(This review also appears at The Huffington Post.)(less)

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Feb 16, 2012 Amanda rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: abuse, arc, contemporary-fiction, mental-illness, standalone

A gruesome murder has thrown a British county up-in-arms, and Leo Curtice finds himself the attorney randomly assigned to defend the murderer--a 12 year old boy who killed and sexually assaulted an 11 year old girl. He finds himself seeking to understand what would make a 12 year old kill and finding more empathy for the boy than those around him think is allowable. Meanwhile, threats start coming in against his own family, including his 15 year old daughter.

This book attempts to be a ripped fro...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Kirsty rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: free-amazon-vine-books, crime, never-read-again

I have to say that this book was a disappointment to me. The plot made it sound like this was going to be a harrowing and tense read, but the writing style and limp characters end up leaving you feeling frustrated.

The lead character Leo is very poorly written, and for a man that is supposed to be a solicitor I found him very dense! He continues throughout the book to dismiss her wife and daughter's fears surrounding his case, and almost makes them sound neurotic for being concerned about such a...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Shannon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads, crime, fiction, read-in-2012, thriller, legal-thriller

I won The Child Who: A Novel in a Goodreads giveaway. In Simon Lelic's novel, Leo Curtice is a solicitor who has the lucky break of answering the phone at the right time to catch a big, career-making case. He'll be representing a twelve year old boy accused of brutally murdering a girl his same age. With the community already having decided on the child's guilt, it soon becomes apparent the hostility Leo will face as he tries to understand his client and searches for reasons why such a tragic an...more I won The Child Who: A Novel in a Goodreads giveaway. In Simon Lelic's novel, Leo Curtice is a solicitor who has the lucky break of answering the phone at the right time to catch a big, career-making case. He'll be representing a twelve year old boy accused of brutally murdering a girl his same age. With the community already having decided on the child's guilt, it soon becomes apparent the hostility Leo will face as he tries to understand his client and searches for reasons why such a tragic and horrifying crime could occur. The hostility is not limited to the community, but also from the boy's mother and stepfather and even from Leo's own wife and daughter, both of whom have experienced some terrifying events as a result of Leo's having taken on the case. As Leo digs deeper and spends more time trying to help his client, his own family falls apart.

I admired the author's writing and found the story to be very compelling. In addition to the plot surrounding the preparation for the boy's arraignment, there is the mystery of who is sending Leo threatening notes as well as the anticipation of what will happen to Leo's family. In the opening of the novel the reader learns that ten years later Leo and his wife Meg are no longer married, and that Leo's taking the case led to the loss of their daughter Ellie. Most of the story takes place during the boy's incarceration leading up to the trial, with occasional chapters that take place ten years after.

Leo Curtice is a character who demonstrates concern and compassion when so few others do, even as his own family meets with senseless tragedy. He can't help but question how society could have failed a troubled child and wonder if his client really is to blame given the circumstances of his upbringing. I felt Leo's frustration at every turn and wanted to find out more about this child. And the other major mystery of the plot was also very interesting. The Child Who: A Novel is a fascinating and exciting thriller. (less)

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Apr 25, 2012 Louise Dix rated it 5 of 5 stars

As an avid reader of Lelic's work I had been looking forward to his third novel and I wasn't disappointed. The Child Who takes what, in less capable hands, could be a tabloid gore-fest, the murder of a school girl by another child, and offers a complex and insightful portrayal of those involved in the case. By focusing on Leo Curtice, the solicitor tasked with defending the accused child, Lelic does not seek to provide easy answers - that is not his style - instead he forces the reader to questi...more

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Feb 29, 2012 Aaron (Typographical Era) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, simon-lelic, nook, ovbc

Simon Lelic is not an author who takes the easy road. In each of his three novels he’s chosen to address an emotionally charged topic and has attempted to turn what the reader thinks they know and feel about the subject matter on its head, forcing them to reexamine their stance and question their beliefs. This trend started with a fictional school shooting in his impressive debut Rupture and then continued with the exploration of the fallout from new fictional anti-terrorist legislation introduc...more

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