Anne Perry is a British writer of detective fiction whose novels typically take place in Victorian England. Perry's first novel, "The Cater Street Hangman," was published in 1979 and features a detective named Thomas Pitt. The Pitt character starts out as a police inspector, but soon becomes an inspector with the Special Branch. Perry has written one novel per year featuring Thomas Pitt since the first was published. There are now 25 Victorian mystery novels featuring Inspector Thomas Pitt as the protagonist.
In 1990, Perry began work on another novel series, this time featuring a private detective named William Monk. This series is also set in Victorian England, and in the first novel, Monk is a police inspector who has an accident and loses his memory. The plot revolves around Monk's struggle to pretend that he has not lost his memory in order to keep his job. In the second novel of the Monk series, the detective loses his job due to insubordination and then becomes a private investigator, even though he has never fully recovered his memory. The Monk novels are as much about him solving his own mystery as they are about solving crimes for others. As well as writing one Thomas Pitt novel every year, Perry also writes one William Monk novel per year.
Perry has also written a series of Victorian mysteries that take place during Christmas time, which have become known as her Christmas series. These novels all feature characters from her other works.
Anne Perry is a disciplined and prolific writer who has also written several short story compilations, and is now starting to venture into the science fiction fantasy genre with a book entitled "Tathea."
