The Child Who

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 obs [...]

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 fo [...]

Time taken to read 2 daysPublisher Penguin BooksPages 303Blurb from An unimaginable crime and the man who must defend it a probing psychological thriller from the author of A Thousand Cuts.A chance phone call throws the biggest muder case in southern England into the hands of provincial attorney Leo Curtice Twelve year old Daniel Blake stands accused of murdering an eleven year old girl But who is truly responsible when one child kills another As Curtice sets out to defend the indefensible, he s [...]

OK So I have mixed feelings about this book I was looking forward to reading a gripping book about a child killer who kills a child However, it was not gripping at all really.well maybe in small sections here and there but not enough to reflect the though provoking subject It never really develops into anything.The way it was written was fairly difficult to understand.when moving from chapter to chapter, the author refers to the characters simply as he or she, so you have to read a fair bit into [...]

I started this book hoping for an intense murder mystery why d he do it novel and walked away with a semi mediocre drama The synopsis makes it sound like the reader will be watching the discovery of why the twelve year old child murdered the eleven year old girl unfold, yet in reality all you really get is to witness how the community treats the public defender and his family because of his involvement with the case There is really little said about the actual murder itself so you are left with [...]

Great plot idea, and it kept me slightly interested but the writing was muh and the main character was an idiot I kept waiting for the book to end with him waking up in a mental ward having a psychotic break There were only two reasons why I did not DNF this book 1 The writer is so praised I wanted to give it a fair shot 2 The writing is so simple it made for a fast read I also really wanted to like it because the cover is pretty and I wanted a reason to keep the book.

This review is based on a free copy of this book supplied to me by the Publisher through the First Reader ProgramThis 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 DanielDaniel Blake 12 year old accused murdererMegan Curtice Leo s long suffering wifeEllie Curtice Leo s 15 year old daughterDaniels Parents Steph [...]

easy to fall into ending was good

A taut, excellent thriller, heavily based on the notorious Bulger Mary Bell murder cases in the UK, Lelic handles a difficult topic bravely There is no attempt to romanticise his murderer, 12 year old Daniel Blake and his main character, Leo Curtice, a rural attorney who accidentally picks up the trial of the year, is drawn into a complex and sympathetic relationship with the young killer at great personal cost.Although I did not appreciate the attempt to justify the killer s actions by blaming [...]

Simon Lelic tackles the emotions aroused when a child kills a child, it aptly starts with Blake Morrison s quote from As If The men had come wanting to kill the kids who d killed the kid, because there s nothing worse than killing a kid.The story centres around Leo Curtice, the provincial solicitor assigned to the case of Daniel Blake a 12 year old boy accused of killing 11 year old Felicity Forbes Cases like these don t come along very often and Leo thinks he is aware of the spotlight that the [...]

Twelve year old Daniel brutally murders Eleven year old Felicity What follows is the fallout of his actions Focusing on the Solicitor who defends him the story is gripping but unsettling as human emotions and conflict come to the fore.Similarities to the Jamie Bulger case in Britain are veined throughout, the writer Simon Lelic highlights the raw facts leading to many thought provoking questions Despite being an uncomfortable read this story is a real page turner.

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.

It took me a while to get in to this book, I wasn t sure if I wanted to read it, kept wanting to put it down but also wanted to know what happened I thought it would be scared but, thankfully it wasn t Really good book, fabulous ending not what I expected at all And it was a really quick read, the chapters flew by quickly.

The slightly back and forth in time nature of the chapters with no indications, so you have to figure out for yourself where that section fits in the timeline can be a little bit of work, but otherwise I couldn t put this book down I read it in two days.

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.

In Simon Lelic s gripping novel The Child Who, 12 year old Daniel Blake has murdered 11 year old Felicity Forbes The act is inexplicable, morally repugnant and by any standard indefensible, and yet Daniel, having been arrested, is entitled to a defence By chance, the case lands on the desk of solicitor Leonard Leo Curtice Leo, intimidated by the heinous nature of the offence, initially approaches Daniel tentatively, expecting a monster But it is not long before he is seduced by Daniel s youth, g [...]

This book seemed to have a lot of potential, but such a lot going on that it ending up being way to vague.It flicked from one part of the story to another and I felt like there were gaps to the story the reader needed to fill themselves.Was quite a controversial subject to cover, especially focusing on defending an admitted 12 year old murderer and trying to get the reader to sympathise with this character I often thought that the second part to the story where his daughter allegedly got abducte [...]

Yanno, I don t like giving bad reviews I m not going to like every book out there, and every book won t relate to me So I feel like if I don t like a book, it s because of me and not the book itself But this book man, I m so glad it s over I honestly couldn t tell you a single thing that happened because the book is so jumbled One minute we re in the present possibly past the next we re in the future possibly present And the way this is written, I couldn t get passed that either I don t think an [...]

Konusu , kurgusu ok iyi Yazar n kaleminde biraz s k nt var

Interesting concept Terrible execution I literally just couldnt get past the first 20 pages.

not as good as I though it would been

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 tho [...]

A twelve year old boy sexually abuses and causes the death of a classmate and is charged with murder The duty legal aid solicitor is appointed to the boy s defence Various journalists and members of the public react The book follows the story of the solicitor and his family, with occasional glimpses of the accused.There are questions around the treatment of child offenders, but unfortunately this book fails to address them, mainly because this is simply not how the UK justice system works The fi [...]

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 murder mystery novel, unfulfilled Simon Lelic hails from Brighton England where he was born in 1976 and where he moved back to after a decade spent in London He received an MA in history from Exeter and later took a post graduate class in journalism In addition to his writing, Simon operates an import export business and has worked as a freelance journalist and in business to business publishing Simon is currently pursuing his interest in writing novels of which he has three Rupture , The Faci [...]

I found this book difficult to rate It was a slightly surreal read for me as it was both set in Exeter, my university town, and about a topic that I am currently exploring in my dissertation Most of the negatives I am going to mention are probably a result of the fact that I ve read a lot about child by child homicide particularly the Venables and Thompson trial and the Mary Bell trial over the past year for my dissertation It was obvious that this book was massively influenced by the James Bulg [...]

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.WritingI was impressed with the writing right up until the end of the book, when the final plot twist just kil [...]

I won The Child Who A Novel in a 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 c [...]

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 had b [...]

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 impact with a rock [...]