So Brilliantly Clever: New Zealand author takes a detailed look at a decades-old crime

Previously on Crime Watch I've talked a little about bestselling crime writer Anne Perry, who writes some very good historical crime fiction, but also has been entwined in historic real-life crime herself; she was one of the teenage perpetrators of the infamous Parker-Hulme murder in 1950s New Zealand that was made into an acclaimed film, Heavenly Creatures, by Sir Peter Jackson (the first film to star a young Kate Winslet).

Last year, a new documentary, Anne Perry: Interiors (filmmaker: Dana Linkiewicz), looking at Perry's reclusive life, her almost single-minded dedication to writing, and her tiny band of close friends and devoted supporters that she surrounds herself with, living in otherwise rural isolation near the small Scottish village of Portmahomack, was released, and had screenings here in New Zealand. At the time there were some stories in the local media, including some that spoke to lawyer and true crime writer Peter Graham, who had been working on a book on the Parker-Hulme murder, about his thoughts on Perry and the way she came across in the documentary.

Now Graham's true crime book, SO BRILLIANTLY CLEVER, is being released this week by Awa Press.

You can read more about the book here, and a good story in The Press here. Apparently there is also a story in this week's New Zealand Listener about Graham and his research into the long-ago murder.