THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 14, 1995 TAG: 9503140055
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: BOOK REVIEW
SOURCE: BY DOUGLAS G. GREENE
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
IN 1954, A LONELY 15-year-old girl in New Zealand named Juliet Hulme was recovering from tuberculosis and taking a respiratory medicine that eventually was removed from the market as judgment-distorting. Her only friend, Pauline Parker, persuaded her to help in a horrifying plot to murder Pauline's mother by bludgeoning her with a brick. Hulme participated willingly, and each teenager was sentenced to 5 1/2 years' imprisonment. On their release, they disappeared.
In 1979, an Anglo-Scottish author named Anne Perry wrote a detective novel set in Victorian England titled ``The Cater Street Hangman.'' It was the first in a series of novels that featured Inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, and were notable for their evocative portrayal of England a century ago and their inclusion of issues that are still important today. The Pitt stories gained a growing readership.
Each of Perry's books is filled with a strong moral sense, yet with a tolerance for human frailty.
The 40-year-old murders in New Zealand seemed to have no connection with the well-deserved success of the reclusive Scottish author until a movie based on the murders, ``Heavenly Creatures,'' became a European success, and a New Zealand reporter discovered that Anne Perry was Juliet Hulme.
Perry now says that she recalls little of her participation in the murder of her friend's mother, and it is clear that, since then, she has lived a quiet, responsible life. It says something for the world of the 1990s that the main effect of the revelations has been to increase the sales of her books. Fortunately, her books deserve a wide readership, and knowing the pain that Perry has gone through - and inflicted - helps the reader to understand the universality of her sympathies.
When, for example, in her current book, ``Traitors Gate'' (Fawcett Columbine, $21.50), Inspector Pitt realizes that ``people were capable of all sorts of strange acts where passion, loneliness, and physical need were concerned,'' we know that Perry is not merely speaking a platitude.
``Traitors Gate'' is an excellent book. Taking place in 1890, it revolves around a number of people caught up in the British government's plans to increase its power in Africa. Pitt's childhood friend, Sir Arthur Desmond, has died mysteriously, and his son thinks he was murdered because he opposed current African policies.
A group known as ``The Inner Circle'' (based, it seems, upon the pervasive influence of the Masons on the late 19th century British administrations) has a financial stake in Cecil Rhodes' move into Zambia, and Sir Arthur posed a threat to them.
Meanwhile, British documents have been falling into German hands, and Pitt is assigned to track down the traitor. When the wife of the colonial secretary is murdered and her body left at the Traitors Gate of the Tower of London, Pitt fears that treason may have infested the highest levels of government.
Perry's books all discuss the limited role of women in Victorian society, and in ``Traitors Gate,'' she adds the problem of Africa and ethnic chauvinism. She shows that neither 19th century imperialists nor 20th century liberationists have a monopoly on the truth. Above all, she shows people caught up in moral dilemmas that do not have simple solutions.
Often novels are based on the concept of ``there but for the grace of God go I''; in her own life, Anne Perry has gone to depths that most of us cannot imagine, and that fact makes the humanity of her writing all the more notable. MEMO: Douglas G. Greene is director of the Institute of Humanities at Old
Dominion University and author of the recently published ``John Dickson
Carr: The Man Who Explained Miracles.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Juliet Hulme, above, writes under the name Anne Perry. At right is
Hulme in a file photo with Pauline Parker, left, with whom she was
convicted of murder in 1954.
by CNB