Report from Santa Fe; Anne Perry

The National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Taos, New Mexico. Hello, I'm Lorraine Mills, and welcome to Report from Santa Fe. Our guest today is International Best Selling Historical, Novelest, and Perry. Thank you for joining us. It's such a pleasure. Well, you're here from you live in Scotland, you've quite the international figure. You're extraordinary, you have over 75 books in print, and 26 million are in print around the world.

Twenty-six million books, Anne. I'm very, very happy about that because it covers several languages and quite a lot of places. And one of the nicest things about it is I get to travel and meet readers of that such a reward. Yes. Well, the Times, the British newspaper, selected you as one of the 20th century's top 100 masters of crime. And I want to show a couple of your books, don't know where to start. Here, this is a very recent, we'll talk about the heroes of these, but death on Black Heath. And you were born on Black Heath, weren't you? Yes, kind of full circle. I wanted to call it something else, but it was politically unfortunate at the time. So my publisher renamed it death on Black Heath, and I thought, well, I can do it without. And then, when just last year's Midnight at Marble Arch, we'll talk about some of these other books in a minute, you have two series. And so, talk to me about these books that I just showed are the Thomas Pitt series. Yes.

Tell us a little about that. It's in this book, 29, right? I think it is. Yes. Yes. For a long time, I wrote books that were not mysteries, and I couldn't get anything published. And I think I know now that it was because the plots just were not strong enough. They didn't make sense. There was no compulsion for the next thing to happen. It happened because I thought it would be fun. And the first book I ever wrote that was a mystery was the K-Dustread Hangman, and that was the first book with Thomas Pitt in it. Here it is. And because it was a mystery, it had a strong plot structure. And it wasn't so much you did it that mattered, as what we discover about each other and ourselves when we're under the pressure of investigation. Because we take people at their own value, very often, and father goes to work in the morning. He goes to the city, he comes back at night, we believe he's been, whatever he says he's been. We've catch him in a small lie, we begin to wonder, well, what else is not what he says? And everything becomes much more exaggerated and more important. Every tiny little lie, well, if he wasn't there, where was he, and why does he lie about

it? And we begin to look at each other differently, and it's the breakdown of relationships. And the discovery is about yourself, as well as about other people. If you love somebody, but you discover something you didn't know about them, what is it really that you love? Do you expect them to be perfect and wear the garments of your dreams? It's not fair. You discover about yourself that perhaps you will lie if you put into a very nasty corner to protect yourself, to protect those you love, or even sometimes not to protect somebody you really don't like. Then you think afterwards, what have I just done? Is that who I am? Yeah. And this just said, kind of, in the context of the Jack the Ripper. Yes. Because I switch fascinates people through all time. It does. That's why I put it in the 1880s, as opposed to now or any other time, because he was in the 1880s. But it's a very fun time to write about. It's glamorous.

I mean, if you can't make glamour out of carriage rides, and you know, the wonderful lampposts that we had at the time. Gaslight. Gaslight. And the various things that there were, the long gowns, and so forth, and the extraordinary immediate juxtaposition between glamour and squalor, it's exciting. And it was a very upbeat time. We believed that we could do anything, okay, so maybe there's a difficulty, well, I've become it. And I think that's a very American attitude as well. Yes. I love it. Okay, there's a problem. So we'll deal with it. Well, people love your novels for so many reasons. The rich historical details from the class, you know, upstairs answers, sort of thing, and then the costumes and the thinking and the language. And then, given that wonderful place, you know, the sense of place that you deliver, the gaslight, the fog, everything, these intricate, very clever, very intelligent plots, with absolutely unforeseen plot twists.

I mean, these are one to read, I want to thank you for them. Thank you. Because I'm not, I'm never sure that I have made it a twist, and I think, oh, that's so obvious. No. No, no, no. Only because I've done it, you know, myself. So you have the pit books, Death on Black Heath, and Midnight at Marble R to the Last Two, and then you also have another series with a very different kind of grittier, detective named Monk. And I want to show one of the Monk books. It's called A Sunless Sea. This is from Colourages Poems, they do. And so tell me Monk is set 30 years earlier. Yes, it is. And what is so extraordinary about him? Well, the very first story, because of the plot line, had to be said after we just had a war in which we'd lost a lot of young men. So I picked the Crimean War in the 1850s. And what is different about Monk is he wakes up one day, and he realizes that he is in a bed, in a room full of beds, and his first thought is, oh, this is the workhouse.

And then he realizes that people are in the bed, so it can't be the workhouse, it's a hospital. And then the nurse was not a nice, you know, foreign-sighting-girl type woman nurse. It's a man who empties the slots, and that's about all he does. And he said, oh, you're awake, then. The police want to see you. The police, what have I done? And then they tied himself up a little bit. They give him a looking glass to make himself look a bit better. Who's that? Who's you? Oh, my. And that's why it's called the face of a stranger, because when he looks in the mirror, he has to recognize himself. He doesn't recognize himself. And then, of course, when the police come, he's terrified. He doesn't know who he is or what he is, and what the police want with him. But after a short discussion, it becomes apparent that they know him very well, and they do not like him, and he's one of them. But he dare not let anybody know he has no memory, because he has to make a living. There's nobody to pick up someone who doesn't know who they are. So he has to fake it and pretend that he knows how to be a policeman, but he does seem

to have the memory of habit. He goes to his own apartment, and he looks like, well, whoever I was, I spend a lot of money on clothes. But I don't seem to have any personal connection to anybody. And they give him a very violent case to solve. So he's trying to discover who he is. He doesn't know who his friends, who his enemies, or why. And he has to solve this case because he has to earn a living, and he dared let them know he's incompetent because of his loss of memory. And as he's solving the case, which is the very violent beating to death of an army officer who's a titled man from the Crimean War, and as he's going about this, he gets flashes of memory about having been to this man's apartment before. I'm looking for a monster who would beat to death, an honorable soldier. Is that me? I'm looking for? Oh, my goodness. Who am I? Uh-huh.

And we're now on number 20, I think. Yes. The other series is, with 29, it's the longest sustained crime series written by a living writer. I mean, so I'm told. Yes. Yes, that's quite wonderful. Let's go back to the war. Because you've also given us the great gift of a series of World War I novels, the first of which is called No Grades, and yet. And this has been a hundred years now, and yes, talked to me about the anniversary, the hundred-year anniversary of World War I. That series has five books, one for each year of the war. And the main character is a chaplain in the trenches, called Joseph Reavley. And my maternal grandfather was a chaplain in the trenches of World War I, called Joseph Reavley. I didn't know him. But it was how sometimes you have any past, somebody you feel very connected to. And it's the terrible dilemma in this most ghastly of wars. As a chaplain, as a believer, what can I say or do that matters at all, makes any kind

of sense in this appalling, ground war where the, towards the latter stages, the average expectation of life was about two weeks. And the youngest, oh, when I was walking through some of the graveyards out there in Flanders, I came across, quite by accident, the gravestone of the youngest known, which he sold it to. Twelve. Twelve. Oh. Nearly thirteen. Oh. I mean, it's just, it devastates. But what can you say, I got my main theme from the fact that when Christ was in Gethsemane, he asked his three disciples, watch with me. And for whatever reason, they were unable to and they fell asleep. And I think the greatest commandment spiritually you can, well, request you can give is watch with me. Because there are some things that are so unspeakable, you cannot help.

I mean, could Joseph say, I'll save your life, I'll save your limbs, your sanity, I'll stop if you're being gassed or going mad or getting post-traumatic stress, or did we call it shell-shock then, or even will win. You can't. I, and everybody knows it's a lie. All he can say is, I won't leave you. And that sometimes can get you through even the darkest night. And that sustained me throughout five years, six, seven years altogether from the first idea of doing it. But you also read some of the real letters. And this was called the, the poet's war. It was. And it has been immortalized in some of the greatest British poetry ever written, and Wilfred Owen and AE Houseman. This title in the Graves' Head is from a house with horsemen. Yes, Chesterton. Oh, Chesterton. It's the second one, show to the sky. That was show to the sky. Yes. For if today the cloud of thunder lowers, tomorrow it will high on far behest. The flesh will grieve on other bones in hours soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts.

It's just, yes, it's wonderful stuff. And we, in our culture, have been drawn to this time the success of PBS is down to Abby. Yes. And we see it starts with, you know, the soldiers coming back from World War One, and we see what the life was like then, you know, beautifully again, this way. It changed forever. Yes. It was almost the end of history in the beginning of the present day. You talk about remembrance Sunday, and in one case, Royal Albert Hall with the net with the net. Oh, yes. They always, every year, they have this enormous net because it's a dome, and it's filled with one scarlet poppy flower, not real ones, of course, for every man that fell, and when they let it down, it just seems to rain and rain and rain scarlet poppies. And you know that every one of those was a young man who died, and my mother, and my stepfather was a soldier, and took me to that once, and my mother said, I can't take you again, but I just, I couldn't help the tears running down my face, and one of the most moving ones

I have ever seen, because they televised it, as they televised the march pass on the senator on the Sunday. And this is usually the Saturday night, was after 9-11. And when all the other armed forces and rescue services and nurses and firemen and police and air raid wardens and all the rest of it had come down and filled the hall, the very last person to come down, well, the last two people, one was a New York fireman, come down the steps, and he was met at the bottom by a fireman from the blitz. And we'll walk to these two terrible, they witnessed these terrible, and it was a policeman who came down and was met by a policeman who'd been there during the blitz. And I don't think it was a dry eye in the house or anywhere else that watched it. It was a fellowship of the knowledge of suffering and rescue and survival that just was beyond words. We mustn't forget. No, no, we mustn't forget.

We're speaking today with Ann Perry, who is an internationally beloved historical mystery writer. How you've written so many books, I don't want to ask you a little about your writing process, you do have this lovely DVD, it says put your heart on the page as you give advice to writers. Well, that is, it's just one hour long that goes through the basics of plot and theme and characterization and setting scenes and that sort of thing. Well, you write longhand, I'm thinking 26 million books in print and 75 books you write longhand. I can only think with a pen in my hand, it's just so easy, you put it where you want to, you don't have to work around, well I'm not technical of ability, I can do what I have to do, but I have to think what I'm doing, what I'm writing, I think about what I'm writing. But you also write morning noon and night. Well morning noon and afternoon anyway. Okay, yeah, yeah, good. Not Sundays. Yeah, oh, okay.

Unless I'm on the road like this and then, you know, then I do, but I consider this not to be work, this is a reward for the work. Ah, well, we're happy because your work is a reward for me, I really, you know, it's summer, it's approaching and people are wondering what to read, I really recommend your books, I really whisk you away to a wonderful, cool, English countryside and with, it's such a challenge to the mind and the heart, where do you get your ideas? Usually from current news, about, oh, it must be three or four weeks ago, now I've reached the age and I prefer not to count, my agent, I was in Scotland, I was on my way back here and my agent said, you'll stop for two days in London, Friday and Saturday and we will brainstorm from, um, August 8th, 9 in the morning until August 5th, 6th and the evening, Friday and Saturday and you will come up with ideas for the next five books. I haven't got an idea in my head, this is only Monday, by Friday you will have. So I started looking at current events. Now I know that you've got a Sunday C there, that was prompted by, I mean, I wrote a little

while ago, obviously, because it's published, but that was prompted by the death of one of a, a atomic weapons research establishment, uh, experts, we were challenged to find hidden weapons of mass destruction in order to justify, I remember reading the case, it was a terrible thing. It was a terrible case and the thing that caught me in my heart looking at his picture, he looked very like my father, who had a similar job during his working lifetime and I didn't believe that he had taken his own life because he was wrong, I thought he was right and events since approved that he was, but he died and it was put down to being suicide. And I thought I would like to have a, make a story around something like that and have his wife so determined to clear his name of incompetence and suicide, that she was prepared to be accused of a murder and take it to trial so she could bring for the evidence somehow

or another that he was not guilty of either of those things. And I wanted a weapon of mass destruction, well obviously there's no possibility of a nuclear device at 1867 or 8, um, but the story happened in the, in the monk series because I take it chronologically because they do change in real time and it was the year before the pharmacy act was passed, which made it illegal to sell opium without any, uh, word or note of how powerful it was or what a dosage should be, you could go to the corner shop and buy your newspaper or tobacco and a penny twist of opium and many people died of it, people gave it to their babies to hush them when they were teething, no idea what it was doing to them or how much was right amount. Just a penny, less than you, but about price of a newspaper, uh, that was, that was passed next year so my battle was to try to get it passed a little earlier, which of course failed. And the weapon of mass destruction in a sense, the year before that the hypodermic syringe

had been invented. Now opium if you eat it, can do you harm, but not nearly as much as if you injected into the bloodstream. So you've now got your weapon of mass destruction in the deliveries, a hypodermic that would deliver opium that you could buy for a penny into your bloodstream and they were trying to prevent that and he was trying to get the pharmacy act passed and because so many people got so much money invested in the drugs industry, not unlike today tragically that it's, it's a very uphill battle and he was murdered because he knew the weapons of mass destruction were there, but that's how I got the idea. Well you flesh it out so beautifully and I learned so much from your books, it's not just like page sharing what's going to happen next, you know, you do such research not only in the period and the costumes and everything, but in huge political issues that are going on, it's just such a natural marriage of all these elements.

Well thank you very much, that's what I'm trying to do because most of our great issues of this sort that are moral and emotional, we haven't solved them, they come in different guys but it's the same problem more or less, I mean find me, anybody who's going to say there's no drug problem today. Oh yeah, yeah, not at all. What I see as I read them, I see the hero is faces a challenge and must be very deep to rise above the challenge and do you as the writer, as you go through say the opium or not opium problem and all that, what happens to you as you lay out this huge cultural problem, have your hero navigate these stormy, stormy seas, we as readers are a change but are you as the author's change? Yes I am, I learn what I think about things and how much I don't know and I begin to empathize with people I would have thought I couldn't and to realize that there are so many sides

to any question and I will put words or thoughts into a character and suddenly realize yes I think that too but it's not as simple as I thought. I grow more when writing than almost anything else, obviously like everybody else I have challenges in life but the actual thinking part as opposed to the reacting, I do very much when I'm writing and I suddenly realize what I do believe or I write something in just a minute that's not right that isn't what you believe but in the research you learn more about other people's lives and you suddenly realize that there's nobody completely good we all make mistakes and it's not whether you make a mistake, it's how you deal with it that counts who you are and I've made both pit and monk have new challenges because they move in in real time in their own lives, new jobs, monks challenges to learn to be a good leader because he was a rebel and he used to be a pain in the everything to his leaders and now he's got young men who are challenging him in the same way and he begins

to understand what a nuisance he was and how he hampered their ability to lead and with pit it's different because he is a good guy he really is a good man but he also knows he has too much compassion sometimes with all sides of a problem and he does not want to take an action without somebody else weighing and judging whether he's right or not as a policeman he could present the evidence and the courts would judge and if he'd made a mistake they will probably find it and he doesn't have to punish anybody he just has to say look this is the evidence but now he's in special branch which is the anti-terrorist sort of side of things he has to act himself and there's nobody higher than he is for him to say what do you think and that means he goes through agonies about his decision right but you can't waste time sometimes you've got to solve the problem right now and not to act is also a decision well you don't want people who making these major decisions who don't agonize over it one of the gifts of your work and your characters is how

nuanced they are it is not the good guys versus the bad guy I mean it is basically but it's not one person is purely good and one person no we have tremendous compassion for your characters and for humanity and you had mentioned in a talk that you gave recently that quote from Dante is that we are punished by our deeds not for our deeds and I think that's that's absolutely true you may you may be punished for having done something wrong but what you have done to yourself by being less than you could have been is the real punishment you're the only one that can fix that so many of these deal with redemption and forgiveness you know I hadn't realized that until quite recently I suppose it must be very high on my list of what is important yes yes well and for every person who examines their own life it's yes and your life story itself what you've been through and constantly recreating yourself as you recreate you know you're moving

in real time too as your characters are and I know you might be moving to I hope you move to America so that we can see you and I can to make that come to pass yes and so I just want to apply to you for your courage well thank you very much and I've had good friends all my life really good friends and there's not much in life that's more more precious than a good friend in a conviction maybe faith good health is very valuable but a good friend covers just about yeah and many of these books at least the last two that I read black heath and marble arch are about repaying debts of honor and in this culture we don't we know they're there and we're fascinated by stories about them but but it's very important to be a person of honor it is and these debts maybe are more important in some cases and patriotism like it was in in black heath and more important than relationships I mean it's it's it costs a mirror to us to reflect what is

integrity really and if you don't have that you've got a very slippery hold on anything else yeah if you are not true to what you believe I think that says something about you it's pretty dangerous but sometimes it can cost a great deal it's it's never totally easy but we're easy we'd all be good wouldn't we yes yes yes if it were easy besides good stories are about struggles aren't they yeah and the good questions are the ones which we don't know any easy answer and we can all be good if it doesn't cost anything it's when it costs something and you have to decide well I want this and I want that and if I have this one I pay and lose that but if I have that when I pay and lose that what am I going to do that's where stories are yes yes and that's where the test of our character is but you've always been fascinated with stories haven't you yes oh yes always yes yes well I think anybody who's been a sickly child and I was sickly as a child

fortunately I've recovered and I haven't been sick of anything worth mentioning more decades and I care to think of but you had if I may say tuberculosis and New Mexico is a famous place for people with tuberculosis because we're so high and dry we have movements at the very time period that you're so interested in in the 30s we had people from all over the world come to live in high dry New Mexico to cure tuberculosis they were called lungers oh I didn't know well there but I know you have a strong artistic creative history yes yes and a lot of people who have been very creative have had a patch of having to lie and think for a long time but I I just had a medical check the other day and I'm delighted to say that since I was about 20 I haven't really been ill I've had the odd code but the new hasn't yeah yeah and living in the mists of Scotland yes but it's it's it's hard to have a patch of being ill for quite a long time but I think if you have it when you're young and then you have a healthy life after that you almost don't remember it

yeah yeah so you know I'm very sorry for children who are ill but having been one I know that if if you completely recover as I have it slides away from you and all you have left is possibly a lot of missed school but an awful lot of fun books read yes yes and a lot of fun that are now the foundation for the wonderful books you've written we are out of time I'm sorry to say what I want to show some of your books for the pit series this one is brand new just out now death on black heath I can I love it and then also the one right before that midnight at marble arch and because New Mexico is such a tradition of the military and we have more people who've gone to the wars from this state than practically any of the state I didn't know that so for the world were one people and people who love down to Nambi and want to know more about world war when this is a fabulous series this first one is called no graves is yet so our guest today is Ann Perry thank you for joining us oh it's been such a pleasure

thank you it has indeed and I want to thank your audience for being with us today on report from Santa Fe we'll see you next week past archival programs of report from Santa Fe are available at the website report from Santa Fe dot com if you have questions or comments please email info at report from Santa Fe dot com report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future and by a grant from the heli foundation tous new mexico You

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