Anne Pery
ALL ABOUT ANNE PERRY
Full Name: Anne Perry (Juliet Hulme)
Date of Birth: October 1938
Place of Birth: London, England
Bio:
(with her own words)
I was born in Blackheath, London England in October 1938. At that time my name was Juliet Hulme, but after the tragedies and errors of my childhood about which I have already said all there is to say, I took my stepfather’s name of Perry, and Anne Perry is not a pen name but my legal and only name.
I have been asked questions occassionally about the film, ‘Heavenly Creatures’, but I cannot answer them. Neither I nor my family and friends knew anything about it until the day before it was released, and I have preferred not to see it, or comment on the accuracy or otherwise of anypart of it. I am very grateful to that vast majority of generous people who allow me to move on and leave that grief behind.
I spent my earliest years moving around a bit during and immediately after the war. At aged six I was severely ill, so much so that the doctor told my mother he would be back in the morning to sign my death certificate.
However I had a lot more illness, and at eight I was sent to the Bahamas to live with a family who fostered me, and thus saved my life. After the Bahamas they moved to a private island off the coast of New Zealand, where I lived a Swiss Family Robinson style of independence. We did a lot of fishing, building, boating ect.
By the time I was ten, I had missed three years schooling. Fortunately my mother had taught me to read and write by the time I was four, so I always loved books, and was able to catch up.
However at thirteen I became ill again and was off school from then on. So that may be of some encouragement to those who had missed much formal education. In many areas it is possible to catch up, even to do well, especially if you have parents who encourage you, which I certainly did have.
Although I had various jobs there was never anything I seriously wished to do except write. It was my father who was responsible for encouraging me to write my ideas down. However, I was in my twenties before I started putting together the first semblance of a book, I was living in the county of Northumberland, in a small town called Hexham, not far from Hadrian’s wall, when I started writing the first draft of Tathea. When I did finally begin that book in earnest, just a few years ago, I was able to use the original manuscript for reference.
It took many years before my first book was accepted for publication, by which time I was in my late thirties. During those years I had various jobs in order to earn an income: clerical, retail selling, fashion, air stewardess, ship and shore stewardess, limousine dispatcher and insurance underwriter.
I began writing mysteries set in Victorian London on a suggestion from my stepfather as to who Jack the Ripper might have been. I found that I was totally absorbed by what happens to people under pressure of investigation, how old relationships and trusts are eroded, and new ones formed. The Cater Street Hangman, the first to be accepted for publication and came out in 1979. I don’t know how many books I wrote before that. I do remember how thrilled I was when I finally had one in print!
I began the ‘Monk’ series in order to explore a different , darker character, and to raise questions about responsibility, particularly that of a person for acts he cannot remember. How much of a person’s identity is bound up in memory? All our reactions, decisions, etc. spring from what we know, have experienced. We are in so may ways the sum of all we have been!
I lived in Southern California for five years - and loved it, then returned to England when my stepfather became seriously ill.
I have continued with the Victorian mysteries because I have come to love both the characters and the period. I like the contrast between glamour and squalor, the endless variety in the capital of Empire, largest post in the world, with men and goods for every quarter of the earth, and the immense energy of optimism.
I have loved the whole series because it is in a way the end of history and the beginning of the modern world, a time in Eurpoe of unprecedented challange and change, a test of who we are, and who we wish to be.
I have lots of ideas ahead, but I am not ready to spek about them yet. My publisher has to be the first to know. But I shall continue the Pitts, Monks, and Christmas novellas as long as anyone is still interested in reading them.
Tathea and Come Armageddon are entire in themselves, and reflect more than anything else I have written, my religious and philosophical beliefs, and there for I care about them in a unique way. They have caused people to ask if I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - yes, I am, and have been for about forty years.
Source: anneperry.net
Series:
Thomas Pitt
The Cater Street Hangman (1979)
Callander Square (1980)
Paragon Walk (1981)
Resurrection Row (1981)
Rutland Place (1983)
Bluegate Fields (1984)
Death in the Devil’s Acre (1985)
Cardington Crescent (1987)
Silence in Hanover Close (1988)
Bethlehem Road (1990)
Highgate Rise (1991)
Belgrave Square (1992)
Farriers’ Lane (1993)
The Hyde Park Headsman (1994)
Traitors’ Gate (1995)
Pentecost Alley (1996)
Ashworth Hall (1997)
Brunswick Gardens (1998)
Bedford Square (1999)
Half Moon Street (1998)
The Whitechapel Conspiracy (2001)
Southampton Row (2002)
Seven Dials (2003)
Long Spoon Lane (2005)
Buckingham Palace Gardens (2008)
William Monk
The Face of a Stranger (1990)
A Dangerous Mourning (1991)
Defend and Betray (1992)
A Sudden, Fearful Death (1993)
Sins of the Wolf (1994)
Cain His Brother (1995)
Weighed in the Balance (1996)
The Silent Cry (1997)
The Whited Sepulchres (1997)
aka A Breach of Promise
The Twisted Root (1999)
Slaves of Obsession (2000)
A Funeral in Blue (2001)
Death of a Stranger (2002)
The Shifting Tide (2004)
The William Monk Mysteries: The First Three Novels (omnibus) (2005)
Dark Assassin (2006)
Christmas novellas
A Christmas Journey (2003)
aka Journey Towards Christmas
A Christmas Visitor (2004)
A Christmas Guest (2005)
A Christmas Secret (2006)
A Christmas Beginning (2007)
World War One
No Graves as Yet: 1914 (2003)
Shoulder the Sky: 1915 (2004)
Angels in the Gloom: 1916 (2005)
At Some Disputed Barricade: 1917 (2006)
We Shall Not Sleep: 1918 (2007)
Novels:
Fashionable Funeral (1992)
Tathea (1999)
A Dish Taken Cold (1999)
The One Thing More (2000)
Naked Came the Phoenix (2001) (with Nevada Barr, Mary Jane Clark, Diana Gabaldon, J A Jance, Faye Kellerman, Laurie R King, Val McDermid, Pam and Mary O’Shaughnessy, Nancy Pickard, J D Robb, Lisa Scottoline and Marcia Talley)
Come Armageddon (2001)
I’d Kill for That (2004) (with Rita Mae Brown, Jennifer Crusie, Linda Fairstein, Lisa Gardner, Heather Graham, Kay Hooper, Katherine Neville, Kathy Reichs, Julie Smith and Tina Wainscott)
Heroes (2007)
Africa Passage (2009)
Execution Dock (2009)
Omnibus:
An Anne Perry Christmas: The First Two Christmas Novels (2006)
Series contributed to:
Malice Domestic
6. Malice Domestic 6 (1997)
Transgressions (with Donald E Westlake)
Price of Desire (2005)
Anthologies edited:
Death By Horoscope (2001) (with Martin H Greenberg)
Much Ado about Murder (2002)
Death by Dickens: All New, Dickens-Inspired Mystery Stories (2004)
Non fiction:
Letters From The Highlands (2004)
Anne Perry Awards:
Agatha Award Best Novel nominee (1990) : The Face of a Stranger
Agatha Award Best Novel nominee (1992) : Defend and Betray
Edgar Awards Best Novel nominee (1997) : Pentecost Alley
Macavity Awards Best Novel nominee (2001) : Half Moon Street
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