Inspiring Older Readers
The Child by Sebastian Fitzek
Sebastian Fitzek was born on 13th October 1971 in Berlin and is a writer and journalist. This book has been made into a TV series, and is brilliantly cast.
Have you ever had a book that has been on your bookshelf for so long you feel indifferent to it? As each day comes, you tell yourself, I’ll read it today. I’ll give it a chance. Months pass and you haven’t glanced at it, much less touched it. But I caved. After a lockdown was imposed because of the Coronavirus, I finally gave in and picked it up. After a couple of days, the book was finished and I was in shock.
Did I like the book? No. I loved it. The darkness, the brutality, sure, it made my stomach knot up, but it was all a part of a wonderful yet anxious reading.
Robert Stern, a successful defence lawyer, doesn’t know what lies in store for him when he agrees to meet a new client in a run-down estate on the outskirts of Berlin. To his astonishment, the defendant is a 10-year-old boy, Simon, a fragile child with a chronic illness. The boy keeps insisting that he was a murderer in a former life. Stern’s surprise quickly turns to horror as he searches the cellar Simon has directed him to and discovers the skeletal remains of a man, the skull split open with an axe - just as Simon told him he would...
But this is only the beginning, as Simon tells the horrified lawyer where to find even more victims… victims whose bodies have lain, undiscovered, for years. Suddenly, the present feels murderously dangerous as well... This book is a darkly twisting, page-turning thriller that will make your heart pound with adrenaline. The opening to Simon’s character description was simple yet profoundly effective and actually made my jaw drop;
“My name is Simon.
I’m 10 years old.
I’m a serial killer.”
A child who claims to be a serial killer? Of course I just had to quickly make a cup of tea and start reading this book. It is creepy, spine-tingling and also will have you question just what makes a child murder not one, but multiple people…
Yushra Fatima
June 2020