Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century
Peter Graham, 2011 (2015, US printing)
Skyhorse Publishing
348 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781620876305
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 (1994).
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. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1947
• Where—New Zealand
• Education—J.D., Victoria University (New Zealand)
• Currently—lives near Dunsandel, New Zealand
Peter Graham is a New Zealand barrister-turned crime-writer. He received his law degree at New Zealand's Victoria University, after which he worked at a large full-service law firm before moving to Christ Church where he became a Crown Counsel for three decades.
He also spent five years as a prosecutor in Hong Kong, part of the Independent Commission Against Corruption. It was while working as a barrister in Hong Kong that he came across the story that would become his first true crime book, Vile Crimes: The Timaru Poisonings (2007).
Even before heading to Hong Kong, Graham admits that he had wanted to write about the Parker-Hulme case, the subject of his 2011 book So Brilliantly Clever (released as Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century in the U.S. in 2015). Graham has been fascinated by the case ever since the 1970s when he was an assistant to Brian McClelland, who had been junior counsel for Juliet Hulme some twenty-years earlier.
By the time he actually began working on So Brilliantly Clever, Graham had largely retired from legal practice. He and his wife moved to a small farm near Dunsandel, where he spent over three years researching the Parker-Hulme murder for the book.
Apart from writing, Graham says he supervises a few pigs, potters around in a "rather big garden," does a little bit of law and some traveling. He and his wife grow apples on the farm and produce a gold-medal-winning cider. (Based on an article from the Kiwi Blog Crime Watch.)
Book Reviews
A comprehensive, well-researched examination not only of the crime and its aftermath but also of the killers’ lives, from childhood to the present day. A concise yet engaging writer, Graham begins by asking, "What makes one act of murder fascinating, where another is merely sordid or banal?" Sex is an obvious answer, but Graham analyzes this aspect of the case with admirable coolness, resisting the temptation to identify lesbianism—or any other element in the drama—as the prime motivation. Like a punctilious courtroom lawyer, he presents the facts and his analysis, leaving the final verdict to the reader
Anna Mundow - Washington Post
[A] readable and eye-opening story of...one of New Zealand’s most famous murder cases. The book explores not only the murder itself but the backgrounds of the two girls... [and] looks at all sides of the debate around the girls’ motivation for the murder of Pauline’s mother.... [F]or general readers, true-crime buffs, those interested in LGBT history. —Amelia Osterud, Carroll Univ. Lib., Waukesha, WI
Library Journal
A New Zealand lawyer revisits the highly publicized, mysterious case of matricide in his country in 1954. Graham makes the old seem fresh as he tries to explain why teenagers Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme murdered Parker's mother during a walk in a nature area.... A worthy retrospective that feels chilling in the manner of novelist Perry.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
(The following questions were graciously submitted to LitLovers by Angela Scott of the Ligonier Public Library in Ligonier, Indiana. Thank you, Angela!)
1. Why do you think that the murder of Honorah Parker became the fascination of New Zealand?
2. The relationships between the girls and Mrs. Hulme and Ms. Parker were vastly different. Both girls individually had rocky relationships with their mothers but only one parent ended up dead, why do you think this was so?
3. The fathers of both girls were relatively weak-willed when it came to their daughters. Discuss the different relationships with them and do you think the girls would have turned out differently with different parents?
4. There has been much speculation on whether the girls were lesbians or just remarkably close friends, children who were outsiders and clung to each other in need. Anne Perry tried very hard to stress that she was looking for Mister Right, yet neither ever married. Based on this book, what do you think?
5. As the girls said, they were completely MAD. Do you think this was true?
6. What do you think of the tohunga’s (a Maori priestly expert) theory that the girls really did find another dimension and Mrs. Parker’s death was needed as a blood sacrifice to the guardians, even though this was done unconsciously.
7. "Perry has an insight that few crime writers can boast of. Perry committed murder, in 1954. Her intimate knowledge of good and evil has brought literary acclaim," wrote the Times. Do you think this is true and why she became an amazing writer of crime fiction?
8. After reading about the childhood Juliet Hulme experienced, do you have any sympathy for her? Do you feel she ever truly repented? Do you think Pauline Parker regretted it?
(Questions written by Angela Scott. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution to both Angela and LitLovers. Thanks.)