Frances McNamara grew up in Boston, where her father served as Police Commissioner for ten years. She has degrees from Mount Holyoke and Simmons Colleges, and recently retired from the University of Chicago. She now divides her time between Boston and Cape Cod.

Author of The Emily Cabot Mysteries about a social activist in Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Frances is Secretary of Sisters in Crime New England and active in MWA New England. Death at the Selig Studios is set in a silent film studio in Chicago in 1909 and will be released May 29, 2018.