The murder of Julia Wallace.

[John Gannon]

Julia Wallace was brutally beaten to death in her home in Anfield, Liverpool, England on the night of 20th January, 1931: her murderer has never been found. Raymond Chandler said of the case, "The Wallace case is unbeatable, it will always be unbeatable" - but is it still wothy of interest? What is the lifespan of an unsolved murder mystery?

[Jon Loomis]

The Chandler quote makes it so. Do I smell a book?

[John Gannon]

There most certainly is; that's what promted by question. In trawling around the publishers trying to muster some interest, a few of the comments I have had back were generally along the lines of - sounds intriguing, but not very commercial: now, if it was a Jack the Ripper book!!! Gave me the impression that if a wrote a Jack the Ripper book claiming he was a dejected outcast from 'Toon Town' taking revenge on women who looked like the artist who couldn't draw his foot properly - giving it the appearance of a club-foot, he had had to suffer the torments of other toons who skitted and jived him about it... It would find a publisher without a problem. When will the 'Black Dhalia' of no interest to publishers, etc.

[doug anderson]

When people say something is not commercial, they really have no idea what they're talking about. Nobody knows what will happen with a book. Publishers shoot themselves in the foot when they make decisions based on a sales algorithm constructed from sales of previous books. I sometimes wonder if the marketing department actually reads the books. The way marketing people position a book for sales determines to a great degree whether or not the book will sell. I'm wondering how many potential sales they've lost based on what they think is commercial. What if they have no imagination? Humor?

[John Gannon]

Hi Doug - nice to hear from you. I totally agree - one of the most bandied-around quotes used in my usual sphere of work - screenwriting - was made by William Goldman in his book 'Adventures in the Screentrade' - "Nobody knows anything". I think it was during the eighties when there was a screenwriter's strike in America - the studios had to go into their archives and dig out all of the movie scripts they had bought and shelved because they were not demographically viable (though, ostensibly, to keep them off the market from other studios) - we were given some of the most memorable movies ever made.

[doug anderson]

John, I read that book a long time ago and after your post, want to reread it. I remember it as been entertaining as well as insightful.

I think that Hollywood set the standard for what is "commercial" and what is not and the result is a lot of really bad movies.

Do you have any recent books on screenwriting that you like?

[John Gannon]

Doug, the one that springs to mind is 'Monster: Living off the Big Screen' by John Gregory Dunne - that's very informative as well as entertaining. Have you read the screenwriter's bible - Joseph Campbell's 'Hero with a Thousand Faces'? It was much streamlined by Chris Vogler and became the memo on the memo of Campbell on 'how to write a movie'. I would recommend simply reading the Campbell.

[Jon Loomis]

Hey--how about making Chandler your detective? Done right, there's a best-seller in it.

[D.R. MacMaster]

It might make a good book with Chandler playing detective. It took place around the time his alcoholism was ruining his career in the oil biz, and it wouldn't be that hard to make an excuse for him to go to England, since he did have connections there.

[Dan Coleman]

What's out there about the case that I can read?

[Dan Coleman]

I just Googled the case and there was a report that Tom Slemen, a reporter, and Keith Andrews, a lawyer, had been credited for solving the case. Or was that a self-proclamation?

I remember how interesting the Sutcliff case was, before he was caught, that is. After that it was boring.

[John Gannon]

Tom Slemen reported that the next door neighbour, John Sharpe Johnston (who was with Wallace when he 'discovered' Julia) had confessed to the murder on his death bed! Slemen was almost sued for libel by the man's family - who were all present at the death and swear he did no such thing. At the time of the murder, the Johnston household was a pretty full one; the Johnstons where living with Mrs Johnston's father, who occupied the parlour; the Johnston's occupied the kitchen along with some of their children - if he had slipped out, brutally battered Julia's head in, the popped back in his own house, am pretty sure someone would have noticed something (unless that is, it was usual for him to wander about the house covered in blood). Why Slemen came out with this bumf is a mystery in it's self.

[John Gannon]

If you can get them, the best books are, 'The Killing of Julia Wallace' by Jonathan Goodman (1969), and 'Wallace: The Final Verdict' by Roger Wilkes (1984): the latter book came about after Wilkes worked alongside Goodman whilst making a 50th anniversay radio programme concerning the murder (21 Jan 1981); Richard Gordon Parry had died the year before, so Goodman was, at last, able to reveal his 'Mr X' from the above mentioned book. Not only that, during the research, Wilkes found a new, and very important witness: John Parkes; he was a garage hand who new Richard Gordon Parry, and said that on the night of the murder, Parry gunned his car into the garage and made him hose the car down - inside and out. I myself am writing a book at the moment, building upon the Goodman and the Wilkes - 'Julia Wallace and the Devil in the Detail' - where I reveal the mysterious 'Qualtrough', 'Marsden', Motive (which has always been lacking from the case), the true killer, why she was killed on the night of the 20th Jan, who he made his escape, why both 'Marsden' and 'Qualtrough' were mysteriously airbrushed from the case - even thought the police knew who they were, how the blood clot found it's way to the bathroom toilet and much, much more.