Anne Perry | |
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Perry in 2012
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Born |
Juliet Marion Hulme 28 October 1938 Blackheath, London, England |
Occupation | Author |
Website | anneperry |
Anne Perry (born 28 October 1938 as Juliet Marion Hulme) is an English author of historical detective fiction, best known for her Thomas Pitt and William Monk series. At the age of fifteen she was convicted of participating in the murder of her friend's mother, in 1954. She changed her name after serving her five-year sentence.
Born in Blackheath, London, the daughter of physicist Dr. Henry Rainsford Hulme, Perry was diagnosed with tuberculosis as a child and sent to the Caribbean and South Africa in hopes that a warmer climate would improve her health. A 1948 Auckland Star photograph of Juliet arriving in New Zealand was discovered by Auckland Libraries staff and written about in the Heritage et AL blog. She rejoined her family when she was 13 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.
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 rich fantasy life together populated with famous actors such as James Mason and Orson Welles, did not want to be separated.
On 22 June 1954, the girls and Honora Rieper went for a walk in Victoria Park in their hometown 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.