Author Profile
Christmas themes (most recently, 2013’s
A Christmas Hope). Not yet convinced
that Perry is one of the most prolific
genre authors since Isaac Asimov? Then
add in three YA novels featuring time
travel, two adult historicals set in late-
18th-century France, another set in the
waning stages of the Byzantine Empire,
and a five-book WWI mystery series.
Quantity for Perry has not come at the
cost of quality. She’s won major mystery
awards, including an Edgar and two Anthonys, which demonstrate the esteem of
fellow writers and fans alike. And Perry
has some impressive stats. She’s a regular
on the New York Times bestseller list,
with sales of 10 million copies.
At the most recent Bouchercon con-
vention, held in Albany, N. Y. (far from
her home in the Scottish Highlands) last
September, Perry was the International
Guest of Honor. In a broad-ranging in-
terview over tea in a secluded corner of
the Hilton Albany, she described the
origins of her long career combining
murder puzzles with vital social issues.
Perry had struggled for years to write
straight historical fiction without success, supporting herself with a variety of
jobs: flight attendant, limousine dispatcher, and insurance underwriter. She
shifted her approach after her stepfather
shared a theory about the identity of Jack
the Ripper, but while Perry found that
classic unsolved crime—and his speculations—intriguing, she was aware of how
many authors had already used the Whitechapel murders as a basis for their fiction. Instead, Perry says, she wanted to
focus on “the effects of the pressure of
criminal investigations, including the
change [that they cause to] relationships,
with some old ones eroded, even as new
ones are formed,” and the question,
PROLIFIC
AND
PROFOUND
Anne Perry
BY LENNY PICKER
Anne Perry works at her craft 12 hours a day, six days a week (she takes Sundays off), year in and year out. The results of
her efforts are tangible: Death on Black-
heath, out in April from Ballantine, is the
29th in her Victorian mystery series star-
ring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. It’s first
installment, The Cater Street Hangman,
was released in 1979. But Perry’s written
more than one long-running series; in
1990, she introduced William Monk in
a series set in an earlier period of Victo-
ria’s reign. Monk’s 20th outing, Blood on
the Water (also from Ballantine), hits
shelves in September. And in addition to
those 49 novels, she also, during those 35
years, wrote five World War I mysteries,
two faith-inspired epic fantasy novels
that explore the meaning of life (Perry is
Mormon), and 11 mystery novellas with
PHO
TO
©
D
I
AN
EH
INDS
