Popular Culture Review Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2000 | Page 101

The Case of Anne Perry

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for she recognizes that she serves two (related) functions in the novels: nursing, to
be sure, but also “the subtler and more interesting and dangerous job” of detecting
{Dangerous 134). Thus in A Sudden, Fearful Death, when she fills in for the
murdered Crimean nurse Prudence Barrymore, she swallows the professional
frustration that had gotten her dismissed by Pomeroy in the interest of maintaining
her position, from which she must detect. Though sorely tempted to talk back to
Dr. Stanhope as she did to Pomeroy, she instead responds “demurely” to his mention
of some “new theories” about which he says she surely would have no concern. Of
course, “it was of considerable interest to her, but mindful of her need to remain
employed in the hospital, she answered,... ‘I hardly think it lies within my skill,
sir’” (181). And it is precisely because of her position on the hospital staff that she
is able to piece together information central to her solution of the case. Yet in this
same novel, in addition to manipulating the gendered codes of professional conduct,
she employs her medical knowledge and connections to reach a solution. It is her
understanding of medical procedures, after all, as well as of women’s capabilities
in the field of medicine, that allows her to decipher the true meaning of Prudence
Barrymore’s letters. In Weighed in the Balance, she again calls upon her medical
knowledge, using both her experience with herbs and her collegial relationship
with a toxicologist to prove the method and perpetrator of Prince Friedrich’s murder.
Strategically, then, Hester uses the ambiguous state of nursing to aid her in her
investigations, alternately playing the amateur or the professional according to the
needs of each individual case.
Inextricably linked to Hester’s ambiguous professional status is her extremely
mutable class status. As a woman in reduced circumstances who chooses to support
herself financially, she is at best middle class. By birth she is, of course, higher up
on the social ladder, a status which gives her social access to many of the gentry;
and her claims to professional status represent an additional, though in this early
period not nearly as powerful, assertion of higher social standing (since
professionalism arguably allowed many classes a social mobility to which they
had not previously had access). Yet as a nurse she is also viewed by many as
automatically a part of the servant class, regardless of her claim to being “well
born.” Though this instability is threatening to Hester at times, making her
vulnerable to the more institutionally and socially powerful, it also provides her
with strategic liminality that is invaluable to her work as a sleuth8. Her ability to
move up and down the social ladder has already been shown to be crucial to the
case in The Face o f a Stranger, and it proves to be important elsewhere as well.
One of the greatest advantages to being perceived as a servant is precisely the
invisibility of such a role, an invisibility which is ideal for observing, then ensnaring
unsuspecting aristocrats. Perry’s novels are full of references to the fact that nurses
are usually viewed as servants, and are therefore invisible. In A Dangerous