A review by taniabotes
The Guilty One by Lisa Ballantyne

3.0

Daniel swallowed. "If nobody else wants me, do I get to stay here then?"

An easy-reading, yet sometimes poignant, book. I enjoyed the dual storyline, especially the fact that they read as two different genres. I definitely preferred Daniel's coming of age story, I even shed a few tears for this lost little boy. I thought the suspense story was a bit predictable, and was hoping for a more inventive ending.

The story: A little boy was found dead in a children's playground...Daniel Hunter has spent years defending lost causes as a solicitor in London. But his life changes when he is introduced to Sebastian, an eleven-year-old accused of murdering an innocent young boy. As he plunges into the muddy depths of Sebastian's troubled home life, Daniel thinks back to his own childhood in foster care - and to Minnie, the woman whose love saved him, until she, too, betrayed him so badly that he cut her out of his life. But what crime did Minnie commit that made Daniel disregard her for fifteen years? And will Daniel's identification with a child on trial for murder make him question everything he ever believed in?