Frances McNamara grew up in Boston where her father was Police Commissioner in the 1960s. A graduate of Mount Holyoke and Simmons College she had a career as a librarian in automated systems.
Working for OCLC in Ohio she wrote scenarios for an amateur mystery night group in Granville OH.
While working at the University of Chicago, she published the Emily Cabot Mysteries with Allium Press of Chicago. Death on the Homefront, the eighth of these historical mysteries set in Chicago was published in December 2020 and the series will extend into the 1930's.
In addition to the next Emily Cabot mystery, she is developing a second historical mystery series to be set in Boston based on the life of Frances Glessner Lee, Mother of Forensic Science. She has done lots of presentations at libraries in the Chicago area about the research into real historical characters who appear in the mysteries. "I always get way too much information to put into the book and I enjoy sharing that with readers." |