Anne Perry
English author (1938–2023)
- 5 min read
- 3 chapters
Related on Lably
Through Amnesia
In 1994, it became public knowledge that Perry had been convicted of murder in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1954 when she was fifteen. She and her sixteen-year-old friend Pauline Parker murdered Parker's mother, Honorah. After serving a five-year sentence for the murder, Perry changed her name from Juliet Hulme and returned to the United Kingdom. She was identified by the media following the release of the film Heavenly Creatures, directed by Peter Jackson, which is based on the case.
Early life
Juliet Marion Hulme was born on 28 October 1938 in London, the second child and first daughter of physicist Henry Rainsford Hulme. Hulme was diagnosed with tuberculosis as a child and sent to the Caribbean, South Africa, and New Zealand in hopes that a warmer climate would improve her health. She rejoined her family after her father took a position as rector of Canterbury University College in New Zealand. She attended Christchurch Girls' High School, located in what became the Cranmer Centre. A 1948 Auckland Star photograph of Hulme arriving in New Zealand was discovered by Auckland Libraries staff in 2012 and written about in the Heritage et AL blog.
Sign in to keep reading
2 more chapters are free with a Lably account.
Murder and trial
In June 1954, at the age of 15, Hulme and her best friend Pauline Parker murdered Parker's mother, Honorah Rieper. Hulme's parents were in the process of separating and she was supposed to go to South Africa to stay with a relative. The two teenage friends, who had created a complicated fantasy life together populated with celebrities such as Mario Lanza and James Mason, did not want to be separated.
On 22 June 1954, the girls and Rieper went for a walk in Victoria Park in the Port Hills of Christchurch. On an isolated path, Hulme dropped an ornamental stone so that Rieper would lean over to retrieve it. Parker had planned to hit her mother with half a brick wrapped in a stocking. The girls presumed that one blow would kill her but it took more than 20.
Parker and Hulme stood trial in Christchurch in 1954 and were found guilty on 28 August. As they were too young to be considered for the death penalty under New Zealand law at the time, they were convicted and sentenced to be "detained at Her Majesty's pleasure". They were released separately five years later. At the time of Perry's death in 2023, Parker and Perry were not believed to have had any contact since the trial.
The events formed the basis for the 1994 film Heavenly Creatures, in which Melanie Lynskey portrayed a teenaged Pauline Parker and Kate Winslet played the teenaged Juliet Hulme. At the time of the film's release, it was not generally known that Anne Perry was Juliet Hulme; her identity was made public after journalists tracked her down some months after the film's release. Although some presumed Hulme and Parker's relationship to be sexual, Perry stated in 2006 that, while the relationship was obsessive, the two "were never lesbians".
Later life
After being released from prison in November 1959, Perry returned to England and became a flight attendant. For a period she lived in the United States, where she joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1968. She later settled in the Scottish village of Portmahomack, where she lived with her mother. Her father had a distinguished scientific career, heading the British hydrogen bomb programme.
Hulme took the name Anne Perry, using her stepfather's surname. Her first novel, The Cater Street Hangman, was published under this name in 1979. Her works generally fall into one of several categories of genre fiction, including historical murder mysteries and detective fiction. Many feature recurring characters, most importantly Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, who appeared in her first novel, and amnesiac private investigator William Monk, who first appeared in her 1990 novel The Face of a Stranger.
After Perry's identity as Hulme was revealed in 1994, she said:
It seemed so unfair. Everything I had worked to achieve as a decent member of society was threatened. And once again my life was being interpreted by someone else. It had happened in court when, as a minor, I wasn't allowed to speak and I heard all these lies being told. And now there was a film, but nobody had bothered to talk to me. I knew nothing about it until the day before release. All I could think of was that my life would fall apart and that it might kill my mother.
She continued writing and said that she was surprised that her friends stuck by her despite the revelation of her identity and the ensuing media attention. In 1998 she was featured by The Times in its list of 100 "masters of crime". Her story "Heroes", which first appeared in the 1999 anthology Murder and Obsession, edited by Otto Penzler, won the 2000 Edgar Award for Best Short Story.
In 2005, Perry appeared on the Trisha show to discuss her murder conviction on a special themed show. A 2009 documentary film, Anne Perry Interiors, gave a snapshot of her life and the people close to her. In 2009 she received a lifetime achievement award at the Agatha Awards. In 2013 and 2020 she was a guest of honour at the Bouchercon mystery fiction convention. At the time of her death in 2023, Perry had published 102 books: 32 novels in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series, 6 novels in the Daniel Pitt series, 24 novels in the Monk series, five books in her WWI series, five books in her Elena Standish series, four young adult novels, two fantasy novels, and 22 mystery novellas with Christmas themes, as well as a number of essays and short stories. Her UK publisher, Headline, reported that she had sold 25 million copies. Her works regularly appeared on The New York Times bestseller list.
In 2017, Perry left Scotland and moved to the US in order to more effectively promote films based on her novels. She had a heart attack in December 2022, and died at a hospital in Los Angeles on 10 April 2023, aged 84. Her novel The Fourth Enemy, the sixth Daniel Pitt novel, was published the day after her death.