Description

‘Anthony Quinn has found an ingenious way of shaping the story into a gripping work of fiction… a compelling mixture of crime story and character study’ Sunday Times

‘A dark, unsettling, completely addictive mystery’ Jonathan Coe

A powerful and gripping crime novel based on the Wallace Murder, a national cause celebre 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 beguiling real-life crime thriller’ Chris Brookmyre

‘Absorbing.. The Mouthless Dead is as engrossing as it is unsettling’ Emma Flint

Publisher Review

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 * A beguiling real-life crime thriller and an elegiac meditation on murder, marriage and loneliness * Chris Brookmyre * A voyage of discovery… this superior whodunnit becomes a danse macabre as the terrible truth is gradually revealed * The Times *