Franklin Ward has endured years of ridicule and bullying, usually retreating rather than answering it. After a final confrontation, a man is found beaten to death and witnesses are ready to believe Franklin responsible. The difficulty is that Franklin himself cannot remember enough of the night to say with certainty whether the accusation is false.
The investigation turns on reconstructing what happened before anger and alcohol blurred the sequence of events. Simon Underwood and the people around Franklin must separate reputation from evidence, because the easiest suspect is also the man everyone already expects to be violent once pushed too far. The mystery asks whether a community’s assumptions about character can become more persuasive than the facts of a killing.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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Laura Joh Rowland
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David Field
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Joseph O’Connor
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Ken Follett
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