The Child Who

British author Lelic follows his acclaimed debut, A Thousand Cuts, with an equally gripping psychological thriller also inspired by a horrific real-life crime. All England is appalled by the vicious sex murder of 11-year-old Felicity Forbes, who was violated with a stick before she was drowned. The herculean task of defending Felicity’s killer, 12-year-old Daniel Blake, falls to attorney Leo Curtice, who, unsurprisingly, finds few who support his role in representing the boy. Curtice’s wife naturally associates the dead girl with their 15-year-old daughter, whose classmates harass her at school because of the murder case. Not even the defendant’s mother and stepfather are fully in Curtice’s corner. Virtually alone, Curtice struggles to get the best possible result for a killer whose capacity to understand his evil is unclear. Lelic dares to make his lead less than an Atticus Finch (Curtice views the case as a career booster), and the plot unfolds in a way few readers will anticipate. Agent: Zoe Pagnamenta, Zoe Pagnamenta Agency. (Mar.)