'The only factors that unite her works are her penchant for dark psychological perception; and their excellence' THE TIMES

In 1970, Harold Stamp, a retarded, reclusive twenty year-old was convicted on disputed evidence and a retracted confession of brutally murdering his grandmother - the one person who understood and protected him. Less than three years later he is dead, driven to suicide by isolation and despair.

Jonathan Hughes, an anthropologist specialising in social stereotyping, is determined to re-examine this case. There were alarming disparities in the evidence and Hughes has little doubt that there has been a terrible miscarriage of justice. But there is also something else pushing this half-Iranian, half-Libyan outsider to reach for the truth . . .

This is more than a mere expose of corruption, it is a dark tale of solitude and the relentless need to contain aberration and section evil.

'Minette Walters has stormed her way into crime fiction. With her first three books she claimed the highest accolades the crime-writing world can bestow . . . A seductive writer with an imagination that makes her dangerous to know' SUNDAY EXPRESS