Journalist. Palindrome. Writer.
James Renner is an award-winning journalist, and author of True Crime Addict, the definitive book on the Maura Murray disappearance. He also hosts the podcast, The Philosophy of Crime. In 2019, he founded The Porchlight Project which raises money for new DNA testing and genetic genealogy for Ohio cold cases. In May, 2020, James Zastawnik was arrested for the murder of Barbara Blatnik, thanks to the work of genealogists funded by the Porchlight Project.
October 17 – Vermilion, Ohio – Elementary, My Dear Ritter: The Science of Forensics. I’ll be speaking about investigating true crime and using genetic genealogy to catch killers at 3:30 p.m.
October 22 – Willowick, Ohio – Willowick Public Library (7 p.m.). “The True History of the Boy Scouts of America”
October 30 – Kingsville, Ohio – Kingsville Public Library (6 p.m.) Local true crimes.
November 1 – Wooster, Ohio – Buckeye Book Fair
November 15 – Cincinnati, Ohio – Books by the Banks
My new horror novel, Violet Eyes, is being released as a serialized audiobook for the fall season! Get your pumpkin spice latte, pull up a chair by the fire, and give it a listen.
On the edge of the University of Akron campus is a beautiful Victorian mansion, former home to the Humboldt family, once the city’s wealthiest patrons. Years ago, Stella Humboldt gifted the house to the university under two conditions – that two young women would live there for free during the school year and that they never, ever bring men inside after dark.
Humboldt House is also the sight of an old local mystery – eighty years ago, young Blaire Humboldt disappeared along with the son of the family’s servant. The police believed they were murdered, possibly by Blaire’s eccentric uncle, but he claimed they left so that they could live together in sin. No bodies were ever found.
Enter our protagonist, a young woman finishing college, who has just moved to Akron. She is nameless, like the narrator of Rebecca. And mysterious in other ways – she has violet eyes and one of them is glass. When she accepts a position to live at Humboldt House, she thinks she has lucked into a wonderful arrangement – free room and board inside a giant mansion. But then the piano begins to play at night and round marks appear along the walls of the kitchen, leading to the locked basement door and she begins to suspect she should have stayed in the dorms.
There are ghosts here, and not all are human.
Listen to Violet Eyes, by James Renner wherever you get your podcasts!
My newest true crime book, Scout Camp: Sex, Death, and Secret Societies Inside the Boy Scouts of America is finally here! Find it at your local bookstore or online here.
If you live in Cleveland and would like a signed copy, drop by Loganberry Books or order directly from them here.
In this timely and deeply personal true crime memoir, acclaimed journalist, author, creator of the True Crime This Week podcast, and former Boy Scout James Renner, explores the dark side of an American institution, its pervasive culture of sexual abuse, and the traumatic—even deadly—repercussions of its long-buried secrets.
In the summer of 1995, at the largest Boy Scout camp in Ohio, a night of sexual violence ended with one counselor dead and another hospitalized. The death was ruled “accidental.” It wouldn’t be the last death associated with Seven Ranges Reservation.
James Renner, too, was a counselor at Seven Ranges that year. He was always sure there must be more to the story of Mike Klingler’s death, because Renner also knew firsthand that the 900-acre camp was not the safe getaway it was portrayed to be. On Friday nights the boys were ushered into the woods for a frightening ceremony in which they learned the rules for becoming good young men—and, above all, that keeping secrets was a scout’s duty. No matter how dark the secrets were.
Determined to face his demons, Renner embarks on a journey back to that tumultuous summer and exposes a clandestine society that left indelible scars on the scouts and the staff who were there. For Renner himself, it meant opening up about his twisted upbringing, his issues with trust and sexuality, and a lifetime of self-medication. The result is a deeply personal, no-holds-barred, and vitally important true crime memoir.
I’m traveling around the Midwest and signing copies of my new true crime book, Scout Camp soon. Come see me!
Also, you can order or pick up signed copies from Loganberry Books in Shaker Heights, Ohio whenever you’d like!
Friday, February 28: Official Book Launch at Barnes & Noble, Fairlawn, Ohio. 7 p.m.
March 1 & 2: The Loveland Frogman Festival.
Tuesday, March 4: Signing at the Jordan Creek Barnes & Noble in Des Moines, Iowa. 6 – 8 p.m.
Thursday, March 6: Reading & Signing at Left Bank Books in St. Louis, Missouri. 6 p.m.
Friday, March 7: Signing at Magic City Books, Tulsa, Oklahoma. 6 – 8 p.m.
Saturday, March 8: Signing at New Market Square Barnes & Noble in Wichita, Kansas . 2- 4 p.m.
Publishers Marketplace just released their Buzz Books picks for Winter/Spring 2025. These are the books they’re excited to read this year and it’s an honor to have Scout Camp featured in the new edition. They excerpt the first 20 pages and you can download their book here.
You have to wait until Feb 25 to read the rest! But you can preorder today!
My horror novella, Muse, is now available in paperback through Cemetery Dance! Click here to order.
Muse tells the story of a private detective hired by a young writer to steal an old box from the estate of H.P. Lovecraft. Mayhem ensues.
“This is a horror-filled book about creativity and storytelling and compulsion, not metaphorical but literal… Muse is now far and away my favorite Renner work.” – ScifiAndScary.com
“Renner’s spin on the Lovecraft-go-round is a dark-ass supernatural detective thriller speculating about the source of inspiration for two of America’s gloomiest, murkiest writers. It is a bloody, and clever and slick-noir journey through a criminal underbelly of east coast gangsters and cultists and amorous boy scout leaders and ambitious teenage novelists and it is creepy and rewarding and HIGHLY EFFABLE. like, ‘we are all effed-able.’ Finally, a Lovecraft i could love.” – Karen Brissette.
My next true crime book comes out February 25, 2025 but you can preorder today! This one is quite personal and serves as a kind of autobiography, too.
Here’s the writeup.
In this timely and deeply personal true crime memoir, acclaimed journalist, author, creator of the True Crime This Week podcast, and former Boy Scout James Renner, explores the dark side of an American institution, its pervasive culture of sexual abuse, and the traumatic—even deadly—repercussions of its long-buried secrets.
In the summer of 1995, at the largest Boy Scout camp in Ohio, a night of sexual violence ended with one counselor dead and another hospitalized. The death was ruled “accidental.” It wouldn’t be the last death associated with Seven Ranges Reservation.
James Renner, too, was a counselor at Seven Ranges that year. He was always sure there must be more to the story of Mike Klingler’s death, because Renner also knew firsthand that the 900-acre camp was not the safe getaway it was portrayed to be. On Friday nights the boys were ushered into the woods for a frightening ceremony in which they learned the rules for becoming good young men—and, above all, that keeping secrets was a Scout’s duty. No matter how dark the secrets were.
Determined to face his demons, Renner embarks on a journey back to that tumultuous summer and exposes a clandestine society that left indelible scars on the Scouts and the staff who were there. For Renner, it meant opening up about his twisted upbringing, his issues with trust and sexuality, and a lifetime of self-medication. The result is a deeply personal, no-holds-barred, and vitally important true crime memoir.
Come see me this fall!
September 2 – Bouchercon, San Diego!
September 11 – Rodman, Ohio Public Library 6:30 p.m.
September 21 – Music Box Supper Club, Cleveland, Ohio: Doors at 5, Presentation at 7 p.m.
September 27 – Willoughby-Eastlake, Ohio Public Library 7 p.m.
October 11 – Mogadore, Ohio Library 6 p.m.
October 17 – Castle Shannon, PA Public Library
November 4 – Wooster, Ohio: Buckeye Book Fair
November 5 – Akron, Ohio Comic Con 1 p.m.
November 6 – Mentor, Ohio Public Library – 6:30 p.m.
November 18 – Cincinnati, Ohio: Books by the Banks
It’s here! My new true crime thriller, Little, Crazy Children is now available in hardback, audiobook, and Kindle, wherever books are sold!
For readers of Ann Rule and Gregg Olsen, a riveting new true crime book from the acclaimed author of True Crime Addict and creator/host of the podcasts True Crime This Week and The Philosophy of Crime, as he explores the unsolved murder of 16-year-old Lisa Pruett in the real life town of the bestselling novel Little Fires Everywhere for a painstakingly researched account of a senseless and heartbreaking tragedy and the people who were pulled into its aftermath.
In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett, a poetry lover and member of a church youth group, was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend, when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy’s home.
The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa’s friends and peers. Together they wove a damning narrative that circled back to a likely suspect: “weird” high school outcast Kevin Young. Without a shred of evidence the teen was arrested, charged, and tried for the crime. His eventual acquittal didn’t squelch the anger and outrage among those who believed that Kevin got away with murder.
With a fresh perspective and painstaking research culled from police files, court records, transcripts, uncollected evidence, and new interviews, James Renner reconstructs the events leading up to and following that heartbreaking night. What emerges is a portrait of a community seething with dark undercurrents—its single-minded authorities, protective status-conscious parents, and the deeply peer-pressured teens within Lisa’s circle.
Who had the capacity for such unchecked violence? What monsters still lurk in the dark? After more than thirty years, questions like these continue to fester among the community of Shaker Heights, Ohio, still deeply scarred by wounds that remain hidden, unspoken, and unhealed.
Do you want to write a true crime book? Here’s everything you need to know to make it happen, from “Picking the perfect case” to “Marketing and Publicity.” Learn how to interview witnesses and the best ways to organize your work into a compelling narrative.
© 2025 James Renner
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