James Renner's Blog
September 15, 2025
Fall 2025 Appearances
October 17 – Vermilion, Ohio – Elementary, My Dear Ritter: The Science of Forensics. I’ll be speaking about investigating true crime and using genetic genealogy to catch killers at 3:30 p.m.
October 22 – Willowick, Ohio – Willowick Public Library (7 p.m.). “The True History of the Boy Scouts of America”
October 30 – Kingsville, Ohio – Kingsville Public Library (6 p.m.) Local true crimes.
November 1 – Wooster, Ohio – Buckeye Book Fair
November 15 – Cincinnati, Ohio – Books by the Banks
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August 31, 2025
New Novel – Violet Eyes!
My new horror novel, Violet Eyes, is being released as a serialized audiobook for the fall season! Get your pumpkin spice latte, pull up a chair by the fire, and give it a listen.
On the edge of the University of Akron campus is a beautiful Victorian mansion, former home to the Humboldt family, once the city’s wealthiest patrons. Years ago, Stella Humboldt gifted the house to the university under two conditions – that two young women would live there for free during the school year and that they never, ever bring men inside after dark.
Humboldt House is also the sight of an old local mystery – eighty years ago, young Blaire Humboldt disappeared along with the son of the family’s servant. The police believed they were murdered, possibly by Blaire’s eccentric uncle, but he claimed they left so that they could live together in sin. No bodies were ever found.
Enter our protagonist, a young woman finishing college, who has just moved to Akron. She is nameless, like the narrator of Rebecca. And mysterious in other ways – she has violet eyes and one of them is glass. When she accepts a position to live at Humboldt House, she thinks she has lucked into a wonderful arrangement – free room and board inside a giant mansion. But then the piano begins to play at night and round marks appear along the walls of the kitchen, leading to the locked basement door and she begins to suspect she should have stayed in the dorms.
There are ghosts here, and not all are human.
Listen to Violet Eyes, by James Renner wherever you get your podcasts!
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June 16, 2025
Upcoming Appearances
June 29th – Medina, Ohio – Big Ohio Book Con (3 p.m.)
August 2 – Bremerton, Washington – West Sound Crime Con (7 p.m.)
September 5 – 7 – Denver, Colorado – CrimeCon 2025
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March 23, 2025
I’m now on Substack!
I’ve joined Substack, where I will be sharing regular essays on life as a writer. I’ll also be releasing new, serialized fiction on the platform soon. Subscribe here.
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March 12, 2025
Upcoming Appearances
March 22 – North Canton, Ohio Barnes & Noble – Book Signing, 1 – 3 p.m.
April 12 – Stark Library Local Author Fair – Book Signing, 2 – 4
April 17 – Crete, Illinois – Author Presentation and Signing , 6 p.m.
June 7th and 8th – London, England – CrimeCon UK
June 28 and 29th – Medina, Ohio – Signings and Fireside Chat, Big Ohio Book Con
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February 26, 2025
Scout Camp is here!
My newest true crime book, Scout Camp: Sex, Death, and Secret Societies Inside the Boy Scouts of America is finally here! Find it at your local bookstore or online here.
If you live in Cleveland and would like a signed copy, drop by Loganberry Books or order directly from them here.
In this timely and deeply personal true crime memoir, acclaimed journalist, author, creator of the True Crime This Week podcast, and former Boy Scout James Renner, explores the dark side of an American institution, its pervasive culture of sexual abuse, and the traumatic—even deadly—repercussions of its long-buried secrets.
In the summer of 1995, at the largest Boy Scout camp in Ohio, a night of sexual violence ended with one counselor dead and another hospitalized. The death was ruled “accidental.” It wouldn’t be the last death associated with Seven Ranges Reservation.
James Renner, too, was a counselor at Seven Ranges that year. He was always sure there must be more to the story of Mike Klingler’s death, because Renner also knew firsthand that the 900-acre camp was not the safe getaway it was portrayed to be. On Friday nights the boys were ushered into the woods for a frightening ceremony in which they learned the rules for becoming good young men—and, above all, that keeping secrets was a scout’s duty. No matter how dark the secrets were.
Determined to face his demons, Renner embarks on a journey back to that tumultuous summer and exposes a clandestine society that left indelible scars on the scouts and the staff who were there. For Renner himself, it meant opening up about his twisted upbringing, his issues with trust and sexuality, and a lifetime of self-medication. The result is a deeply personal, no-holds-barred, and vitally important true crime memoir.
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January 16, 2025
2025 Book Tour!
I’m traveling around the Midwest and signing copies of my new true crime book, Scout Camp soon. Come see me!
Also, you can order or pick up signed copies from Loganberry Books in Shaker Heights, Ohio whenever you’d like!
Friday, February 28: Official Book Launch at Barnes & Noble, Fairlawn, Ohio. 7 p.m.
March 1 & 2: The Loveland Frogman Festival.
Tuesday, March 4: Signing at the Jordan Creek Barnes & Noble in Des Moines, Iowa. 6 – 8 p.m.
Thursday, March 6: Reading & Signing at Left Bank Books in St. Louis, Missouri. 6 p.m.
Friday, March 7: Signing at Magic City Books, Tulsa, Oklahoma. 6 – 8 p.m.
Saturday, March 8: Signing at New Market Square Barnes & Noble in Wichita, Kansas . 2- 4 p.m.
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January 14, 2025
Read the first 20 pages of Scout Camp in Publishers Marketplace’s Buzz Books!
Publishers Marketplace just released their Buzz Books picks for Winter/Spring 2025. These are the books they’re excited to read this year and it’s an honor to have Scout Camp featured in the new edition. They excerpt the first 20 pages and you can download their book here.
You have to wait until Feb 25 to read the rest! But you can preorder today!
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December 22, 2024
New Audiobook!
My collection of unsolved true crime stories, The Serial Killer’s Apprentice, is now available as an audiobook for the first time! Get it on Audible here.
Investigative reporter James Renner reopens cold cases that have baffled Clevelanders for years, including:
● Murder—Beverly Jarosz, just sixteen years old, felt a dark foreboding in the months before she was stabbed to death in her quiet Garfield Heights home. It all started with an anonymous gift.
● Stolen Identity—Joseph Newton Chandler was not who he claimed to be. Some think he was the Zodiac killer; others say he was D. B. Cooper, or even Jim Morrison.
● Suicide or murder?—Joseph Kupchik hid gambling problems from friends and family until he was found at the bottom of a nine-story parking deck in downtown Cleveland—with multiple stab wounds.
● Heist—In 1969, Lakewood bank employee Ted Conrad nabbed $215,000 from the vault one day after his twentieth birthday. The FBI still shows up at his high school reunions.
● Controversy—Jeffrey Krotine was thrice tried for the grisly 2003 murder of his wife and ultimately acquitted, to the frustration of prosecutors, detectives, and jurors.
These stories venture into dark alleys and strip clubs, as well as suburbs and small towns, where some of the region’s most horrendous crimes have occurred.
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October 10, 2024
Upcoming Appearances
October 16: Sandusky Library, presentation about the unsolved murder of Lisa Pruett and my book, Little, Crazy Children. Link here.
October 24: Milan Library, presentation on the 35th anniversary of the Amy Mihaljevic case. Link here.
November 2: Buckeye Book Fair, Wooster. Coming meet local authors and get some signed books! Link here.
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