The Innocent Wife

Twenty years ago, Dennis Danson was sentenced to death for a brutal murder in Florida. But there were flaws in the case, questions hanging over the prosecution, suspicions of a miscarriage of justice. Sam, an English schoolteacher, finds herself drawn into an online community obsessed with the case, and with the eighteen-year-old who tearfully protested his innocence. Who was the ‘Short Man’ that police never found? Why did they fixate on Dennis so early? What happened to the missing evidence? Sam writes to Dennis, and Dennis writes back. They become friends. She visits him. They fall in love. They marry. And, at long last, a confession from the real killer seems to prove Dennis’s innocence. He’s acquitted; declared a free man. Sam is overjoyed, but part of her starts to doubt Dennis, and the ways he seems to change once released. She pushes it aside. After all, they’re husband and wife.