It is rare for a writer to produce a book so influential that it helps to change the law. Ludovic Kennedy was one such writer and in his absorbing book, Ludo and the Power of the Book, Richard Ingrams explains how Kennedy’s investigation of a notorious miscarriage of justice, titled 10 Rillington Place, was instrumental in the debate which was to lead to the abolition of capital punishment. Kennedy’s book, which established his name and his calling, concerned the case of Timothy Evans, an innocent man hanged in 1950 for a murder committed by his landlord, John Christie.