Disordered Minds - Walters Minette

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Résumé :
'When people are frightened, there's always a presumption of guilt if your face doesn't fit...' In 1970 Howard Stamp, a retarded twenty-year-old, was convicted on disputed evidence of brutally murdering his grandmother in her Dorset home. Less than three years later he was dead, driven to suicide by self-hatred and relentless bullying by others prisoners. A fate befitting a murderer, perhaps, but what if he was innocent? When thirty-four-year-old anthropologist Dr Jonathan Hughes re-examines Stamp's case for a book on injustice, his research into-the written evidence leads him to believe that Stamp was wrongly convicted. But is the forgotten story of one friendless young man compelling enough to persuade Jonathan to confront the real murderer? One person believes it is. George Gardener, sixty, has been trying to bring Stamp's case to public attention for years and has unearthed new evidence that might exonerate him. But Gardener needs the young academic on board if it is to be used to maximum effect. On the face of it, there is no similarity between the illiterate Stamp and the highly educated Hughes, yet their lives resonate through their damaged childhoods and their mutual sense of exclusion. With the threat of war in Iraq dominating British hearts and minds, there begins a battle far closer to home: an attempt to prove a grotesque miscarriage of justice. But if a dangerous killer is still at large... ...then Gardener must first help Jonathan defeat his own demons ... 'Brilliant - heartrending and shocking, clever and demanding' Daily Mail

Biographie:
With her debut, The Ice House, Minette Walters won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasey Award for the best first crime novel of 1992. Rapidly establishing a réputation as one of the most exciting crime novelist writing today, her second novel, The Sculptress, was acclaimed by critics as one of the most compelling and powerful novels of the year and won the Edgar Allah Poe Award for the best crime novel published in America in 1993. In 1994 Minette Walters achieved a unique triple when ne Scold's Bridle was awarded thr CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year. Her following five novels, The Dark Room, The Echo, The Breaker, The Shape of Snakes and Acid Row were also published to further critical acclaim throughout the world. In 2003, she was once again awarded the CWA Gold Dagger for her ninth novel Fox Evil. Minette Walters lives in Dorset with her husband and two children. Disordered Minds is her tenth novel.