In the novel By the Pricking of My Thumbs, Amos Perry is the husband of Alice. They live at the Canal House, near Sutton Chancellor. Before that, they had lived in a cottage four or five miles away.
After Amos retired, he and Alice wanted a quiet place in the country. The Canal House was going cheap, because it is very lonely. At the time of the events of the novel, they had been living there for about three years.
Amos is described as being tall and shambling-looking but bigger and more powerful than he appears to be. He has a "shambling gait" and walks slowly. Yet he turns out to be surprisingly gentle with animals like injured birds.
Villagers thought of Amos as "not quite all right" and "just simple" or "not fully comepetent mentally". Tuppence notices a "kind of wondering simplicity about the look in his eyes".
Some villagers thought he might be responsible for a wave of child murders at Sutton Chancellor many years ago. However, Alice spoke for him, saying that he was always at home with her in the evenings, except for Saturdays, when he would go to the pub.
Amos is fond of his garden, and takes Tuppence to see it, when she visits the Canal House. He shows her a rose which has red and white stripes, and tells her that the locals call it 'York and Lancaster'. He expresses the opinion that it smells better than "them new-fashioned Hybrid Teas". He also tells her that he likes bright colours.
Before Tuppence leaves, Amos puts a paeony in her buttonhole, saying that it looks pretty on her. Tuppence is suddenly afraid of him, and observes that he is smiling "rather wildly" at her, and is "almost leering".
Portrayals[]
In the Agatha Christie's Marple adaptation By the Pricking of My Thumbs, Amos Perry is portrayed by Jody Halse. His role here is smaller than in the original. Here he is the village vehicle mechanic. Tuppence and Miss Marple go to see him and discover Sir Philip Starke's car being worked on. It had a broken tail light, fittong the description which Marjorie Moody had given of the car which took Mrs Lancaster away from Sunny Ridge. Inside, Tuppence found a pack of polo mints, such as Mrs Lancaster had offered to her.
In this adaptation, Alice Perry is Amos's mother and not his wife. Amos also has a deceased brother Job Perry. Job, not Amos is the one who is thought to be "simple" and who is suspected of a murder from long ago.