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Both Wrong Time, Wrong Place by Toronto Star reporter Caroline Mallan and See No Evil by The Globe and Mail's Isabel Vincent recount the story of Christine Lamont and David Spencer's unlikely involvement in one of Brazil's most sensational kidnappings. In 1989, after a stand-off with police in S'Symbol not transcribed'ao Paulo, Spencer and Lamont, both Canadians, were among those arrested for their role in the abduction of wealthy supermarket executive Abilio Diniz. They were each subsequently sentenced to 28 years in prison.
Wrong Time, Wrong Place is divided into three parts, with the first section chronicling David's and Christine's lives from childhood on. This the weakest part of the book, largely because Mallan presents as her own observations details of her subjects' lives that she didn't witness. David, she tells, "had been a great fan of the Montreal Canadiens goaltender Ken Dryden, and had never failed to watch him on Hockey Night in Canada"; Christine "giggled almost childishly when David made one of his sarcastic remarks." To make matters worse, these fictionalized passages are often overwritten.
Mallan manages to turn things around in the second section, where the focus shifts to recounting the kidnapping and its aftermath. In spite of Mallan's...