The Child Who

I fell into this novel very easily. Almost straight away I could empathise with the main character, Leo, whose average career is is suddenly catapulted into the limelight when he agrees to take on and defend the case of a 12 year old boy who has murdered an 11 year old girl. It is a disturbing theme, and though of course it is integral to the plot, the viewpoint of the novel is very much Leo's. The plot evolves around the ways his family and the community respond to him accepting the case. He lacks his wife's support from the off, but somewhere in him he feels that Daniel cannot be held completely accountable, placing the reasoning on the side of violent and neglectful parents. The story doesn't dwell too much on the justifications of it, however, because the action is soon pinned to his family, and tears off when Leo's own daughter is attacked at school as a rebuke; then Leo gains a completely different perspective! I would read this author again: I think he has done a great job with a very sensitive subject.