The Wrong Man

Beautiful Diana Calthrop was last seen breaking hearts in Laura Wilson's The Innocent Spy as an icily daring MI5 operative in the finest couture. But it’s now several years on, and Diana is looking a little tarnished, her famously catastrophic taste in men catching up at last. On the plus side, she has once again bumped into Inspector Ted Stratton, that sturdy, straightforward copper. Could he be her rescuer? First he’d have to rescue himself, and that’s a long shot: With his wife dead, his children distant, and his professional life in tatters, Stratton’s nursing his own depression like an old war wound. And while London never lacks for crime, there’s one crime in particular—one ghastly series of them—that Stratton just can’t shake. Like all the book in the “Stratton” series, The Wrong Man is rooted in fact, in criminal cases that played out in real life. Wilson is not the first person to be fascinated by the case at the heart of The Wrong Man; it has been dramatized several times, most successfully in the chilling 1971 film “10 Rillington Place,” starring Richard Attenborough and John Hurt. Originally published in the UK as A Capital Crime (Read on for an explanation of why we changed the title.)