Innocent One

Ten years after the case known as the Angel Killer, the public has not forgotten it. At eleven, Sebastian Croll was charged with murdering a playmate. The trial drew national attention, and the criminal lawyer Daniel Hunter helped establish that Sebastian was innocent.

Now Daniel receives a call from his former client, and the old case returns. A professor at Sebastian's university has been savagely killed, and everyone who knew her has come under suspicion. Daniel agrees to represent Sebastian a second time. Once details of the boy's past reach the press, many treat him as guilty, and as tension mounts across the country, Daniel must again show that his client is blameless. Before long he realizes the threat is not limited to Sebastian and that he may be in danger himself.

The novel is by Lisa Ballantyne, author of Everything She Forgot, and it asks what becomes of a child once the accusation that defined him has passed.