Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century by Peter Graham

Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century by Peter Graham

384 pages

Published May 2013 by Skyhorse Publishing

Publisher's Summary: On June 22, 1954, teenage friends Juliet Hulme—better known as bestselling mystery writer Anne Perry—and Pauline Parker went for a walk in a New Zealand park with Pauline’s mother, Honora. Half an hour later, the girls returned alone, claiming that Pauline’s mother had had an accident. But when Honora Parker was found in a pool of blood with the brick used to bludgeon her to death close at hand, Juliet and Pauline were quickly arrested, and later confessed to the killing. Their motive? A plan to escape to the United States to become writers, and Honora’s determination to keep them apart. Their incredible story made shocking headlines around the world and would provide the subject for Peter Jackson’s Academy Award–nominated film, Heavenly Creatures. 

A sensational trial followed, with speculations about the nature of the girls’ relationship and possible insanity playing a key role. Among other things, Parker and Hulme were suspected of lesbianism, which was widely considered to be a mental illness at the time. This mesmerizing book offers a brilliant account of the crime and ensuing trial and shares dramatic revelations about the fates of the young women after their release from prison. With penetrating insight, this thorough analysis applies modern psychology to analyze the shocking murder that remains one of the most interesting cases of all time.

My Thoughts: 

I'm playing catch up on reviews so I'm going to just do a quick bullet point on this one. 

• I don't remember where I first heard about this book but the idea that a well-known author had been involved in a murder as a young woman intrigued me. How, I wondered, had she gotten past that to become a respected writer? 
• By the time I actually got around to reading the book, I'd forgotten that Anne Perry was actually Juliet Hulme and thought that she was involved in some other way. Except that I always, always look at the photo inserts in a book before I start reading so I quickly figured it out. 
• Both Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker had difficult childhoods that caused them to have attachment issues with their mothers. Neither mother was ideal - Honorah Rieper ran hot and cold and Hilda Hulme struggled to connect with her daughter at all. Juliet was considered quite pretty and very bright - she thought perhaps even more highly about herself because of this than did anyone else. Both girls clearly struggled with mental health issues. 
• That being said, so little was known about mental health as recently as the 1950's that both doctors and the judicial system struggled to explain how two girls who showed no remorse and clearly understood that what they did was wrong could also be mentally ill. Also, the idea that these two young ladies might be lesbians was a big story - inherently this seemed to make them worse people but did it mean that they were just worse people or even more mentally ill? It seemed that it must be one or the other. 
• If this happened today, it would still be big, international news. We'd still struggle with the idea of matricide and how two young girls could be so remorseless. 
• As bad as the penal system was in the 1950's, as terrible as the conditions in the places where these young women were sent were, they were both allowed to continue their educations and actually served very little time, relative to the crime they'd committed. What was even more strange was the fact that they were both treated so differently when they were released. Parker was force to stay in New Zealand on parole, while Hulme (who took on the name Perry because her mother had taken that name on after she became involved with a new man by that name) was allowed to travel to Britain. 
• The two women dealt with the aftermath of what they had done very differently. Parker appeared to be very repentant and lived a quiet, religious life, trying to stay out of the spotlight. Perry (whose name evolved to Anne Perry) was able to live without anyone knowing about her past and became quite wealthy and well known with her writing. In many interviews, after it was discovered who she was, she showed very little remorse. 
• Director Peter Jackson got his big break when he and his wife produced a film adaptation of the case. Heavenly Creatures starred Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey. Now I want to track that movie down. 
• Reviews on this one are very mixed. Some think it's terrific. I thought it particularly dragged in the middle and that Graham tried to stuff in everything that he'd learned about the case. At the end of the book, we learned what had happened to all of the people who had played a part in the trial - honestly, I didn't really care. I don't know what that says about me. Did I want it to be more sensational? Not particularly. But I also thought it was a story that should have better held my attention.