Anne Perry is internationally known for her best-selling crime novels, but in New Zealand she is better known as teenage murderer Juliet Hulme.
In 1954, Ms Hulme and her friend Pauline Parker murdered Ms Parker’s mother in Christchurch. The case made headlines around the world, and years later it would be retold in Sir Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures.
As a writer, Anne Perry has been prolific, having written more than 70 books. Her first, The Cater Street Hangman, was published in 1979. She writes by hand, with pen and paper, and says that once she finishes a book, she doesn’t read it, but is immediately on to the next one.
“I love what I do. If you were to say ‘look, I’ll pay you a couple of million a year not to write’, what would I buy that would be as much fun?”
She says she didn’t know that her former life would be linked to her current one due to Heavenly Creatures, until her agent asked her about some rumours the day before the film was released.
She said she did not consider lying, and was more concerned for her parents than herself.
“I thought this was the end. I’ll lose everything. I’ll lose my career; it’ll probably kill my mother. I’ll lose my home and I shall probably end up living in a hut on the hillside… And I haven’t lost anything. Nothing at all, not even a friend. Grace of God, there.”
She reiterates her mantra of moving on from her crime.
“There’s nothing you can do except get on with it, and I’m certainly not the first person this has happened to,” she said.