The Man from Primrose Lane

Set in the near future, this ambitious, genre-bending debut novel from investigative reporter Renner (Amy: My Search for Her Killer) opens with the brutal torture and killing of an elderly hermit, known as “the Man with a Thousand Mittens” (because he wore mittens in the summer), in West Akron, Ohio, and passes through the agonized aftermath of the presumed suicide of the beloved and troubled wife of bestselling true-crime journalist David Neff, who’s charged with the hermit’s murder. David, obsessed with finding the real killer and saving his four-year-old son from his worst fear, that the boy will grow up to be just like himself, painfully sets about clearing himself of the murder charge. He becomes involved with scientist Victor Tesla, whose time-travel vehicle takes multiple Davids on dizzying hunts for alternative-time child abusers, rapists, and homicidal maniacs. Punctuated by moments of desperate tenderness, this unusually demanding and grim tale provokes troubling reflections on guilt and innocence, good and evil, revenge and redemption. Agent: Julie Barer, Barer Literary. (Mar.)