Author Biography
Frances McNamara
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 is now a librarian at the University of Chicago. She is working on the fourth book in the Emily Cabot mystery series, Death at Woods Hole. When not working or writing she can be found sailing on Lake Michigan.
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Frances McNamara was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her father was an FBI agent and later the Police Commissioner of the city of Boston. Whether it was the influence of a professional detective in the family or near sightedness, she started reading mysteries with Nancy Drew stories and soon graduated to Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a major in English. Although she had never worked in a library, she signed up for a masters in library science program at Simmons College part time while working at the Wellesley College Library. In order to keep busy, she also signed up for a masters in English degree at Simmons and studied Chinese language at Wellesley, and Middlebury College.
At the library
She worked with computers in libraries moving on to a position at the Massachusetts State Library and at a NELINET, a job which took her to libraries all over New England to help start them up on automated systems. A move to Columbus Ohio for another library automation job led to a collaboration with some amateur actors who produced a number of mystery night to help raise money for local libraries. She produced the plots and peripheral materials for stories ranging from a contemporary reunion, a golf course mystery and a couple set in 1930’s England.
A woman student at University of Chicago in the early days
Another job move took her to Chicago where access to local mystery writing groups and activities allowed her to share her writing with critique groups, and to participate in a long running local group of mystery writers. Participation in various conference critiques provided encouragement from some professional editors. It was the job at the University of Chicago Library that led to creation of Emily Cabot, as a graduate student from Wellesley College who comes to the university the first year that it opens. Between the flavor of 1890’s in the architecture on campus, and the access to historical research materials at the library, it was a great opportunity to translate the feel of the city to stories about Chicago at the turn of the century. Allium Press of Chicago published Death at the Fair, a story featuring Ida B. Wells and the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In Death at Hull House Emily becomes a resident at the famous settlement house on the West side of Chicago the winter after the Columbian Exposition when a smallpox epidemic ravaged the immigrant communities. In Death at Pullman the famous company town south of the city suffers a strike that spreads to the rest of the city and the country. In each story fictional characters mix with some real people from the time, demonstrating the rich history and culture of the thriving young American metropolis that Chicago was.
At CCYC Montrose Harbor Chicago
While living right in the heart of the city of Chicago, she is a part time resident of Sandwich, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod where she owns a family house with her sister. She recently discovered that the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole on Cape Cod was a place where scholars from the University of Chicago came to do research in the summers. As a result, she is currently working on the fourth Emily Cabot mystery which will be set in Woods Hole at the Marine Biological Laboratory but the cast of characters will come from Chicago.
In addition to continuing the Emily stories into the twentieth century, Frances has plans for a story about a Medieval French queen, and perhaps a set of stories set in China.
Alllium Press of Chicago
