A New York Times Best Seller!In 1994, director Peter Jackson released the movie Heavenly Creatures, based on a famous 1950s matricide committed in New Zealand by two teenage girls embroiled in an obsessive relationship. The movie launched Jackson’s international career. It also forever changed the life of Anne Perry, an award-winning, bestselling crime writer, who at the time of the movie’s … at the time of the movie’s release was publicly outed at Juliet Hulme, one of the murderers. A new light was now cast, not only on Anne’s life but also on her novels, which feature gruesome and violent deaths and confront dark issues, including infanticide and incest.
Acclaimed literary biographer Joanne Drayton was given unparalleled access to Anne Perry, her friends, relatives, colleagues, and archives to complete this book. She intersperses the story of her life with an examination of her writing, drawing parallels between Perry’s own experiences and her characters and storylines. Anne Perry’s books deal with miscarriages of justice, family secrets exposed, punishment, redemption, and forgiveness, themes made all the more poignant in light of her past. She has sold 25 million books worldwide and published in 15 different languages, yet she will now forever be known as a murderer who became a writer of murder stories. The Search for Anne Perry is a gripping account of a life, and provides understanding of the girl Anne was, the adult she became, her compulsion to write, and her view of the world.
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Upon seeing this biography of Anne Perry, I had to get it. I think I’ve read most of her books and enjoy them tremendously. Her background is surprising, yet explains her reaches into profound depths behind her story lines, depths that include morality and the hypocrisies of society. These books she writes are no simple mystery stories; they have …
If you read Anne Perrys books you will enjoy this amazing look at her life.
Just moved too slowly. In the end I didn’t care.
Didn’t finish this one.
I purchased this book because I was interested in the story of Anne Perry’s childhood and the murder of her friend’s mother. I didn’t realize I would have to read the entire plot of every book she ever wrote to find out that story. I found myself skipping entire sections of this book because of that. Terrible.
An autobiography could not have been any more subjective than this book. When I first saw it advertised, I thought it would be about the search for Juliet Hulme (Anne Perry’s given name) by investigative journalists. Instead, it is pretty much a paean to Perry and her books. While painting Perry as redeemed of her confessed guilt of murder when …
I’ve never read an Anne Perry novel and fully expected this book to focus on Perry’s rare and terrible childhood crime (a folie a deux matricide committed with her best friend under other names when they were still schoolgirls and the story that “inspired” Peter Jackson’s acclaimed movie, “Heavenly Creatures.”), The two girls’ motivation intrigued …
This woman murdered a woman and not once apologized for it. I don’t think murder should be rewarded with a fawning book about the murderer.
Having read a book and seen a movie about the actual murder, I was very curious about Ann Perry’‘s later life. But, I was extremely disappointed in this book and did not finish reading it. I found it to be more of a synopsis of her many works, giving me little insight into the person she became.
As a young woman Anne Perry helped her friend murder her mother. During the trial both girls showed no remorse. As an adult Anne Perry became an historical fiction writer and has had much success as a writer. In this book and in interviews she has done since being “outed” in 1994 I still see very little remorse. The only good thing that came out …
I grew weary on the history of what manuscripts she submitted when and to which publishing company. Pages of this. I found myself skimming pages and finally gave up. I rarely give up on a book but this one seemed more like a arduous exercise in reviewing the history of her publications.
Interesting but her books synopses.
It was a very interesting book about one of my favorite mystery authors. Very informative.
I bought this book hoping to learn of the murder she was involved in…I’m giving up after about a third in…so far only a history of her career and recounting of plots of her books.
They make a big deal about Anne being a murderer but I’m half way through the book and I still don’t know what she did. They just keep talking about her literary career and how her past affected it. I eventually just looked it up on the internet. I think if they had just told what happened up front then you could better appreciate what she did …
I was disappointed that the book did not cover Perry’s early life to any degree. It became “the elephant in the room”
TOO LONG AND BORING. I didn’t like the book!!!!
I have loved the Pitt and Monk mysteries by Anne Perry. I had hoped to enjoy this look at her life, the secrets of her incarceration, the crime she committed and her family……but this book was so darn hard to read!
The author spends most of her time reviewing in detail the characters of Pitt, wife Charlotte or onto Monk, his wife Hester and …
I expected it to read like a novel. Instead it read like an appointment calendar.
Would not recommend it.
This book was mostly rehashing the writing process and plots of Anne Perry’s novels. Very little about her childhood or the murder of her friends mother was included, interspersed between each successive novel retelling.