Joseph believes it is imperative for morale, and for the war effort, that he prevents Mason from publishing. They are alone at sea. The power to stop Mason is in Joseph’s hands. Should he let him live and publish his article, or kill him? These are the kinds of dilemmas that Anne loves to put before her main protagonists. The greater the internal crisis generated, the more interesting she finds it.
Flanders is a test for more than just one Reavley. Judith, Joseph’s sister, is also there. Young, aimless and impetuous in civilian life, she now works for the Voluntary Aid Detachment as an ambulance driver. Judith is another of Anne’s Nightingale women — strong, saintly and self-sacrificial — who find meaning in a life helping others. Judith’s older sister, Hannah, notices the change. ‘She’s so competent lately, so … full of purpose. She’s just as emotional as ever, but now it all has direction. It seems almost wicked to say it, but the war has given her something. She’s … found herself.’
Hannah is a wife and mother, so the conflict has a very different impact on her life. Her husband, Archie, is a naval commander, so war means waiting, and watching her man and her world change almost beyond recognition.
I don’t want women bank managers, women police, women taxi drivers, and I don’t want to be able to vote for Members of Parliament. I want to do what women have always done … I hate uncertainty, anger, fighting, destroying everything we used to value.
In Angels in the Gloom, Anne’s third First World War novel, published in 2005, a seriously injured Joseph is invalided back to his home village of St Giles in Cambridgeshire. He arrives there just in time for the murder of Theo Blaine, a young scientist working on top-secret torpedo development. As he recovers his health, Joseph finds himself called on to minister to Blaine’s widow and other grieving members of the village who have lost sons and husbands. The current minister, Hallam Kerr, is ‘the kind of man who falls into the Church as an occupation because he really isn’t adequate to make a respectable living at any other profession’. Kerr is driven by a need for security and social standing rather than vocation, and the demands of war reveal his faith to be as shallow as his mercenary motives.
‘Look me in the face, Captain Reavley, and tell me you believe in God! … Do you still think there’s a God in control of all this, then?’ … Joseph looked at the anguish in [Kerr’s] eyes, the fury and despair, the knowledge that he was falling into an abyss that had no bottom, and he was helpless to stop it.
Joseph knows that abyss well, but has eluded it so far because at some profound level he still believes.
A parallel plot to Joseph’s St Giles convalescence is Matthew’s ongoing search for the Peacemaker and his agents. Among the possibilities are Irish-born double agents Patrick Hannassey and his daughter Detta. The two meet covertly, as Anne and her father had done.
They would have sat together, probably on a bench in Regent’s Park, watching the ducks, and talked about whatever the problem was. They might have walked around an art gallery, seeing what was for sale, looking for bargains, old watercolours that needed cleaning and restoring, the foxing taken off, and refreshed to show their beauty.
Patrick Hannassey collects and restores watercolours, just as Henry Hulme had done. The ones he gave Anne are on the walls of her home in Portmahomack. But Hannassey is also a spy whom Matthew follows to sea on his brother-in-law’s ship, the Cormorant, which becomes spectacularly involved in the biggest naval engagement of the war.
Anne found the transition from the Victorian era to a new period challenging and difficult, and she wondered at times whether she would succeed. Don advised her on the over-arching theme and its relationship to the individual book plots; Meg Davis investigated the period with special reference to characterization, scene authenticity and the overall outline; and Jonathan researched the First World War, mapping a framework of battles, locations, personnel, policy and propaganda. He shared his army insights, knowledge of firearms and medicine, and added what he thought was an important ingredient.
At times I’ll say: ‘I don’t think you’ve got enough testosterone there. I like that bit but we need to hype it up. These aren’t dons at the high table of the senior common room smacking each other with handbags. These are men fighting a war.’15
Meg MacDonald continued in her role as critic and commentator, listening to Anne reading sections of the books, and suggesting developments and alterations. It was a shared effort, and they all waited anxiously for a response to the new venture.
The critical reaction to the launch of Anne’s First World War series was enthusiastic, and warmed as each of the first three books was released. No Graves As Yet was given a starred review in Publishers Weekly: ‘This absorbing mystery/spy thriller, set in tranquil Cambridge just before the onset of the Great War, marks a powerful start to bestseller Perry’s much anticipated new series.’ ‘Perry’s melancholy evocation of the “eternal afternoon” that would soon turn to night all over England is lovely,’ said the New York Times, while the Chronicle described it as a ‘dazzling story’ of ‘sheer brilliance’.
Shoulder the Sky and Angels in the Gloom both made the extended New York Times bestseller list, in October 2004 and September 2005, respectively. Of the former, the Book Report reviewer wrote: ‘Perry’s descriptions of warfare are accurate, and accordingly are horrific, though not gratuitously so … Perry’s writing has never been better than it is in Shoulder the Sky … Read one and you’ll be hooked for good. Highly recommended.’16 Critics liked the fast and exciting narrative pace of the novels, but also remarked on their thought-provoking qualities and their ‘study of the ethics of politics and morality in war-time’.17 The series viewed the First World War from a moral perspective, and not just at an individual level, but in terms of institutions and states. The books also covered the cataclysmic changes brought by the war: social reform and mobility, the enfranchisement of women in the United Kingdom, the erosion of old class hierarchies and values, and a generation of men damaged or lost, their women widowed or unmarried.
Even more than detective fiction, the British owned this material as part of its history, yet the most avid followers of the series continued to be North Americans. This was partly a result of Anne’s reluctance to face the British media. Journalists could be considerate, but to sell newspapers or magazines they often covered the Parker–Hulme murder rather than Anne’s novels. As Jonathan explained to Meg Davis when No Graves As Yet was released, ‘each time Anne talks to the Press about the past, they present it as they want and it always backfires. She gets depressed and sulks and we all get the backwash!’18 Although it had been nearly 10 years since Anne’s identity had been revealed, Meg had learned to accept and live with the negative press coverage. ‘There will never be an interview here — at least for the foreseeable future — without reference to the past; all we can do is keep it down to the minimum.’19
Anne was contractually obliged to participate in the promotion of her books, and more than once Meg had to mollify her incensed publishers when interviews in the United Kingdom were cancelled after Anne lost her nerve. For example, Anne’s British publisher, Headline, was justifiably annoyed when Meg called off an interview with Jackie McGlone from the Scotsman. Headline’s Lucy Ramsey wanted an assurance that it would not happen again: ‘If we have to cancel Anne’s interviews this time we won’t feel able to set any up in the future as journalists would be wary …’20
Meg was in a difficult position. Her instinct was to protect Anne, but she needed to build Anne’s profile. In 2002 the Telegraph had published a disparaging article that Meg described to Jonathan as ‘a horrible shock — a respected broadsheet who previously had been very fair to Anne’. However, she also pointed out that ‘Anne’s books are lagging behind in this country through lack of publicity, and we can’t afford to let this go any longer’.21 In the midst of this email discussion between Meg and Jonathan, Anne was on a seven-week author tour of the United States, where she felt more at ease with the media. Don sent Meg an
update: ‘Kim Hovey reports that in its third week NO GRAVES has lifted from 24 to 19 on the Times extended bestseller list. Anne’s tour is going well, Kim reports, and its effects are showing.’22 On one side of the Atlantic Anne was reported to be reclusive and recalcitrant; on the other she was understood to be open and accessible. The challenge for Meg was to bring the British media perception into closer alignment with that of the United States.
In March 2004 she wrote to Jane Morpeth at Headline with a challenge:
Anne’s done a few [interviews] recently — and yes, I recognize that this wasn’t entirely plain sailing, but I do feel that was about her nerves on stepping into the UK limelight properly for the first time, and I’ve found that her confidence is growing … She ought to be so much bigger in the UK than she is at the moment, and we’ve always recognized that this is because she’s wanted us to hold back on the promotion. But now’s the moment for a good push, don’t you think?23
Anne worked consistently on her contracted schedule of Pitts and Monks while she researched and wrote the First World War series. Southampton Row, her twenty-second Pitt, was released to acclaim in 2002. This was the first book written and published after Leona Nevler left Ballantine in late July 2001. Technically she had been made redundant, but it was an odd decision that left Meg Davis shocked. ‘I sent her flowers and took her to dinner when I was in New York a couple of months later. We met once or twice after that when she was at Penguin which she enjoyed hugely — it was back to her roots of up-market women’s fiction.’ Anne needed a champion at Ballantine to speak up for her work, especially at commissioning meetings, and Meg Davis was anxious to know whether the new editor would appreciate what he had inherited ‘or neglect them — or even dump them!’ She and Don Maass decided to meet Leona’s successor, Joe Blades, as soon as possible:
I bought a particularly severe suit, as Don and I decided to play it as ‘good cop and bad cop’ … The UK agent descending from on high was designed to impress on Joe how valuable a writer Anne is … [but] Joe turned out to be a lovely man, and an able champion of Anne … He had a cat he was so devoted to that he’d had a watch face made with a picture of it; years after the death of the cat, he was still wearing it.
After their appointment with Joe Blades, Don and Meg had lunch with Kim Hovey and then carried on to a meeting with a theatre company. As they went into the theatre a group of young ‘actors were coming out, and teased us for looking like Mulder and Scully’ — so Meg felt they had got the suit look for Joe Blades exactly right.24
The success of Southampton Row, which followed on from The Whitechapel Conspiracy, was the perfect beginning to a new working relationship. This novel is as much about conspiracy and Victorian politics as it is about murder. Pitt’s allegiance to his job with Secret Intelligence is sorely tested when, on the eve of his departure for a well-earned family holiday on the edge of Dartmoor, he is ordered to remain in London. His nemesis, Charles Voisey, is seeking election to Parliament in a few days, to promote his ghastly plans and unscrupulous secret society. He is standing against long-serving Liberal candidate Aubrey Serracold, whose eccentric wife’s toying with the occult threatens to discredit him.
Charlotte, the children and maid Gracie leave for the country while Pitt tries to head off his electioneering arch-rival. Certainly if the family stays in London they will be at risk of deadly reprisal, either from Voisey or his society. Late-night séances, a clairvoyant found cruelly murdered in her Southampton Row apartment, and a family in terrible jeopardy are the ingredients that make this story both a compelling read and a clever snapshot of the times.
Southampton Row rocketed to number five on the New York Times bestseller list, and was number seven on the bestseller lists for both the Washington Post and the Publishing News, and the reviews were highly complimentary. Everyone had been a little apprehensive about the degree of interconnectedness between Southampton Row and its predecessor, but this seemed to have no impact on either its critical reception or its sales. Anne was delighted with the book’s success. Increasingly she was seeing her writing not as separate novels or in series, but as a broad picture in which characters could be linked and stories could move through time. It was enormously liberating and exciting.
It was disappointing, then, to discover that her number-five book was not in the row of the New York Times bestseller books lined up on the shelf and numbered from one to 50, when she entered an airport bookshop in the United States. All the other titles were there: just number five was missing. When she asked a staff member to explain the book’s absence, he said: ‘It’s set in the Victorian period and no one reads those sorts of books these days, anyway.’ His logic was so flawed she felt certain the absence was personal. At once, she had the thrill of the achievement and the sting of exclusion, as was often the reality for Anne.25
Anne’s next Pitt, Seven Dials, was published at the beginning of 2003. ‘A positive SEVEN DIALS review in PW [Publishers Weekly] greets our return from the holidays,’ said Joe Blades’s ebullient email to Anne and her agents:
A hard copy is in the mail to you, but here’s an excerpt … ‘The trail leads Charlotte into the dark and dangerous alleys of London’s Seven Dials district, and eventually she and Thomas discover that the two cases intersect in a horrifying way. Perry once again delivers a complex and satisfying tale that fans of the series will devour.’ Congratulations!!! A wonderful way to begin the new year.26
Joe Blades delighted in giving Anne regular and encouraging updates on the book’s progress. ‘For the week March 2, SEVEN DIALS clocks in at Number 27. That’s definitely news for celebration here at the midpoint of the present week!!!’ he wrote, and ‘The New York Times bestsellers for March 9 have been announced, and SEVEN DIALS is still on the ‘extended’/‘expanded’ list — at Number 30. We say hooray all over again!’27
Anne’s books were beginning to make Ballantine, and everyone else involved, real money. ‘Anne’s sub-agents are just now reaping the rewards of many years’ hard work — equally her foreign publishers,’ Don Maass wrote to Meg in September 2003. She was so prolific and successful that her industry was becoming an empire. But her income was diverse, and fractured again by foreign rights and sales, so that it was difficult even for her agents to keep track. Regarding the acceleration of short-story contracts, Don wrote to Meg: ‘I do not mind that Anne agrees to write so many; that’s fine, it makes her feel good and serves many purposes. What I do not like is being uninformed and out of the loop.’28
Their annual story summits were an important part of keeping in touch and helping Anne maintain continuity across her various projects, especially the Pitt series, which now spanned nearly 25 years. They tried to make the sessions enjoyable social occasions, too. In February 2003, Meg emailed Don with some suggestions for their ‘Annual summit’:
Anne & I have looked at our diaries and the optimum weekend for us would be 23/24 August … Before that I’m in Canada seeing my mum, and after that Anne’s booked up … Ideally it needs to be timed with Anne being ready to start on the next Pitt. Anne’s quite keen on ‘something decadent near Oxford’ — I think she’s after a luxury hotel where she can get a facial etc — and while this sounds just what the doctor ordered for you and me too, heaven knows what the price will be like … With business the way it is, I don’t know how we’ll explain this in our accounts … In old age I know I’m going to be Margaret Rutherford, prodding people with my stick when they don’t do what I say. I’m in training for this right now. Consequently I’m reading the penultimate draft of the new Monk very quickly, just to catch any problems — Anne forgetting three major plot points last time gave me the heebie jeebies … It’s beginning to feel like all I ever read is various things by Anne.29
Although most of these collaborative occasions were positive, there were times when Anne felt ‘hounded’ and overpowered. When Don communicated Anne’s feelings to Meg, she was quick to find ways of making the editorial process less painful. As she w
rote to Don, the ‘new email method will give us plenty of forum, and more thinking time too — we won’t have to cram 1000 good ideas into 3 days, but see how much more we can do over a space of months.’30 Anne did not use email herself, but her agents and publishers could send messages to Jonathan or to Elizabeth Sweeney, and they could print them out. Then it was just a matter of a telephone call to settle an approach or clarify an issue.
Towards the end of 2003, another idea Anne had been considering for some time came to fruition: a 40,000-word Christmas novella that explored the back-story of one of her characters. This releasing of her characters from their serial existence was an outcome of her new fluid, free-form approach to writing. At about the same time Anne had sent Joe Blades a gift. In his email response, he wrote: ‘in a way, in return, I have a gift for you — terrific news: there’s a spectacular review of A CHRISTMAS JOURNEY in today’s Wall Street Journal’:
‘Anne Perry’s A Christmas Journey is that rarest of seasonal thrillers: one that exemplifies the message and the spirit of the holiday … This brief work has an almost Jamesian subtlety, and with its powerful message of responsibility and redemption — “We need both to forgive and to be forgiven” — it conveys a moral force in keeping with the season.’ Exactly what we wanted to see in print, Anne. So beautiful and so richly deserved! Congratulations! What a fine way to begin … the holiday season.31
The Search for Anne Perry Page 30