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ALLIANCE -- His last name is a palindrome.
He's a founding member of Last Call Cleveland, a sketch comedy troupe.
He directed a film based on the Stephen King story "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" that the famed author sold him for $1 as well as a documentary that explored the influence of J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" that led to a short meeting with the reclusive writer - all in 2004.
A year later, he was named by Cleveland Magazine as one of the city's 30 most interesting people.
However, what James Renner is best known for is his work as a true crime writer.
Renner started making a name for himself as a journalist with Cleveland's Scene Magazine when he uncovered new clues and suspects in the cold-case murder of Amy Mihaljevic, a 10-year-old girl who was kidnapped from the Bay Square Shopping Center in Bay Village in October 1989 and whose remains were found in Ashland County in February 1990. His work led to the successful closure of the Tina Harmon case in 2009. Harmon was a 12-year-old girl who was abducted and murdered in October 1981.
Renner spent months researching the Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus abductions when the girls were still missing and is haunted by the fact that he had Castro's name in his notes.
And he is the author of the critically acclaimed "True Crime Addict," which examines how he became obsessed with the case of Maura Murray, a 21-year-old woman who disappeared on the evening of Feb. 9, 2004, after a car crash on Route 112 near Woodsville, New Hampshire, and whose whereabouts remain unknown.
When the Kent State graduate appears at Rodman Public Library Monday, Sept. 11 at 6:30 p.m. as part of the Fogle Author Series, he will discuss his latest book, "Little, Crazy Children," which was released earlier this year.
Registration is required to attend Renner's visit at rodmanlibrary.evanced.info/signup.
In "Little, Crazy Children," Renner explores the unsolved murder of 16-year-old Lisa Pruett, who was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend in Shaker Heights when she was stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy's home in September of 1990.
The murder cast a gloom over the community and a high school outcast was arrested, charged, and tried for the crime. But without a shred of evidence against him, the teen was acquitted and that sparked anger and outrage among those who believed that the he got away with murder.
The host of two podcasts, including The Philosophy of Crime and True Crime This Week, Renner has also penned two novels, including "The Man from Primrose Lane," which blends mystery with sci-fi in a very unique structure, and "The Great Forgetting," described as a "love letter to conspiracy thrillers." An Akron resident, Renner is the founder of The Porchlight Project, a nonprofit that raises money for new DNA testing of cold cases in Ohio. In 2020, an arrest was made in its first case - the murder of Barbara Blatnik - thanks to its funding of genetic genealogy.