Pierre Lemaitre (2018) Three Days and a Life, translated from the French by Frank Wynne.

I wrote a short story in a few lines. I recognised it as the For Sale, Baby shoes, unused variety. I’d picked up and started several books by Scottish crime writers. I didn’t finish them.  Pierre Lemaitre’s (2018) Three Days and a Life has generic recommendations, but one is from Stephen King. It’s an unusual book in that the reader’s sympathy is with the killer of a six-year-old boy.

Antoine was twelve-years old in 1999 when he killed the little boy than lived next door to him in the town of Beauval, where nothing much ever happens. The murder wasn’t an accident. Nor was it premeditated.

Lemaitre shows what guilt looks like. The waiting and hoping.

The reader’s sympathy is with the boy that committed an evil deed, but is not evil. He’s normal, in a it could have happened to you and what-would- you-do- kinda way?  

A writer’s job isn’t to punish the guilty but to make things worse for him. The reader follows his life. The aftermath (middle) in 2011. And the denouement in 2015. Life often doesn’t add up.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CVBVVGD6