Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Eerie Book Club


Okay, so I had book club at my house last month. This is the book I picked, "The Face of a Stranger", by Anne Perry. I am very into Agatha Christie type novels and had heard the author was similar. I also heard she was mormon, so I thought, let's give it a try. It was actually a pretty good mystery, I thought it was rather clever and unique. But that's beside the point. On the day of book club, I decided to look some things up about the author to share with the group. Her official website had a biography where she mentioned something about a movie called Heavenly Creatures and that she had no comment about it and would like to leave the past in the past. This piqued my interest, so I proceeded to find out more about this "past". Her real name was Juliet Hulme and when she was 16, in 1954, she began an intense friendship with a girl named Pauline Parker. Together they created a kind of fantasy world which they would "visit" together. This part is interesting enough, but then her and her friend, through a series of events, plotted to kill her friend's mother and eventually carried this plot out. This murder and their trial is very famous in Britain, and apparently inspired a movie. Have I piqued your interest? Well, if so, try these sites that go into further detail of this case. Here is the shorter version, here is a much longer version, with pictures. Let me assure you, her story is a lot more interesting than the book we ended up reading for book club.

A picture of the young Juliet Hulme

2 comments:

Annie said...

What?!! That's CRAZY! And this chick isn't in jail? Am I missing something? I'm going to go check out those sites you linked when I'm not so tired. Wow, good post. After reading this, I've decided that the blogworld needs more posts with intrigue. I'll try to come up with something good tomorrow. The only thing I can think of right now that's the least bit mysterious is what in the world is that awful smell wafting into my house from outside? Ah yes, that would be cow manure because I live in the middle of freaking no where. Case solved. I'll have to think of something else.

Holly said...

That's why I don't read books. Authors are evil.