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A review by pn_hinton
Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century by Peter Graham
3.0
I read this book for a handful of reasons. One was because it had been on my TBR pile for a few years, after watching the Hallmark movie "Mystery Woman: Mystery Weekend" and realizing that it was inspired by this real world case. The other was that I was participating in the Book Riot's 2018 Read Harder Challenge and this fit the true crime aspect. However after reading this book I can say without a doubt that true crime is not my bag. The reason is because with regular murder or cozies, everything exists in the author's mind. Even if inspired by true events it is still fiction. True crime is true which means it really happened to someone and it is really hard to read that since reading for me is a form of escapism.
The murder and reason behind it is horrific enough. I do feel the author showed a good balance of giving enough information without being too graphic or putting unnecessary details for shock value with regards to the actual murder. There were some chapters that seemed unnecessary and put in just for filler such as the background and updates from the police officials and lawyers that were involved. I can understand having to read about Pauline and Juliet's upbringing to understand why there was such a dissociation with their parents (and by extension mothers) that they felt murder was okay but the background on the other people involved were completely unnecessary. It felt like it was put in to pad the pages count and make it longer than it needed to be.
The recap of the murder itself happened fairly early and then back tracked before going into the trial which I thought was well planned since most people who read true crime likely want the crime aspect introduced quickly. But there were still some fluff to the novel which made it a bit tedious to get through. After the initial telling of the murder it took awhile to get to the trial and see what happened. After that it seemed things were rushed through to get to get when they were released and what happened after that, leading up to the release of the movie "Heavenly Creatures" and the unveiling of author Anne Perry as a murderess. Because quite frankly if that movie had not been released I doubt ant of this would have come to light.
For me the toughest thing to deal with was the lack of remorse or responsibility on behalf of the Juliet, who would became author Anne Perry. Her reasoning (as it were) that she gave for participating in the murder were lukewarm at best and she did not accept her part in the murder. She seemed content to blame it all on Pauline instead of admitting that yeah she was a bit messed up herself and by extension messed up royally. And that is putting it mildly. Murder is one of the things people have the hardest time forgiving but most people repent and honestly? She never did. Or at least it was not portrayed that way in the book. Because no matter the reasoning at the end of the day she along with Pauline killed a woman and took her before her time. And that is hard to process especially when someone has such a nonchalant attitude towards it. Pauline at least (who is now called Norah I believe) will not talk about it at all which to me seems to indicate some form of remorse but the harsh acceptance that there is nothing she can do to change it. To pass the buck, as it were, seems a bit worse for me.
Again this is all taken with a grain of salt since true crime is not a genre I normally read, but this was an unsettling book for me. I doubt I will read any other true crime since this book left me feeling that way and that there was no resolution for this because at the end of the day no one learned anything or grew from this. And a woman was dead leaving a man without his wife and children without their mother.
The murder and reason behind it is horrific enough. I do feel the author showed a good balance of giving enough information without being too graphic or putting unnecessary details for shock value with regards to the actual murder. There were some chapters that seemed unnecessary and put in just for filler such as the background and updates from the police officials and lawyers that were involved. I can understand having to read about Pauline and Juliet's upbringing to understand why there was such a dissociation with their parents (and by extension mothers) that they felt murder was okay but the background on the other people involved were completely unnecessary. It felt like it was put in to pad the pages count and make it longer than it needed to be.
The recap of the murder itself happened fairly early and then back tracked before going into the trial which I thought was well planned since most people who read true crime likely want the crime aspect introduced quickly. But there were still some fluff to the novel which made it a bit tedious to get through. After the initial telling of the murder it took awhile to get to the trial and see what happened. After that it seemed things were rushed through to get to get when they were released and what happened after that, leading up to the release of the movie "Heavenly Creatures" and the unveiling of author Anne Perry as a murderess. Because quite frankly if that movie had not been released I doubt ant of this would have come to light.
For me the toughest thing to deal with was the lack of remorse or responsibility on behalf of the Juliet, who would became author Anne Perry. Her reasoning (as it were) that she gave for participating in the murder were lukewarm at best and she did not accept her part in the murder. She seemed content to blame it all on Pauline instead of admitting that yeah she was a bit messed up herself and by extension messed up royally. And that is putting it mildly. Murder is one of the things people have the hardest time forgiving but most people repent and honestly? She never did. Or at least it was not portrayed that way in the book. Because no matter the reasoning at the end of the day she along with Pauline killed a woman and took her before her time. And that is hard to process especially when someone has such a nonchalant attitude towards it. Pauline at least (who is now called Norah I believe) will not talk about it at all which to me seems to indicate some form of remorse but the harsh acceptance that there is nothing she can do to change it. To pass the buck, as it were, seems a bit worse for me.
Again this is all taken with a grain of salt since true crime is not a genre I normally read, but this was an unsettling book for me. I doubt I will read any other true crime since this book left me feeling that way and that there was no resolution for this because at the end of the day no one learned anything or grew from this. And a woman was dead leaving a man without his wife and children without their mother.