The Mouthless Dead

Anthony Quinn author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Little, Brown Book Group

Publishing:6th Mar '25

£20.00

This title is due to be published on 6th March, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

The Mouthless Dead cover

A powerful and gripping crime novel based on the Wallace Murder, a national cause célèbre of the 1930s and still unsolved today, by the author of Curtain Call and Our Friends in Berlin

One night in 1931 William Wallace was handed a phone message at his chess club from a Mr Qualtrough, asking him to meet at an address to discuss some work. Wallace caught a tram from the home he shared with his wife, Julia, to the address which turned out, after Wallace had consulted passers-by and even a policeman, to not exist.

On returning home two hours later he found his wife beaten to death in the parlour. The elaborate nature of his alibi pointed to Wallace as the culprit. He was arrested and tried, found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang, but the next month the Court of Criminal Appeal sensationally overturned the verdict and he walked free. The killer was never found.

Fifteen years on, the inspector who worked the case is considering it once more. Speculation continues to be rife over the true killer's identity. James Agate in his diary called it 'the perfect murder', Raymond Chandler said 'The case is unbeatable. It will always be unbeatable'. And on a cruise in 1947, new information is about to come to light.

A dark, unsettling, completely addictive mystery, which draws you in with all the momentum and all the loving attention to period detail that we've come to expect from Anthony Quinn * Jonathan Coe *
This absorbing account of one of the most famous unsolved British murder cases creates a fascinating narrative about what really happened. The Mouthless Dead is as engrossing as it is unsettling * Emma Flint, author of Little Deaths *

ISBN: 9780349146928

Dimensions: 240mm x 156mm x 22mm

Weight: unknown

288 pages