Frances Brody


Frances McNeil, also writing as Frances Brody, is an English novelist and playwright, and has written extensively for radio.

Early life

McNeil was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, where she now lives. She studied at Ruskin College, Oxford and has a degree in English literature and History from University of York.

Writing

As Frances Brody she writes a series of 1920s crime novels featuring Kate Shackleton. The sixth in the series, An Avid Reader, is set in the Leeds Library, the oldest surviving subscription library of its type in the UK. After nine books in the series Brody wrote a short story prequel, Kate Shackleton's First Case, in which the story begins in a Harrogate teashop.
She wrote three novels under her own name, which were republished in 2016 under the name Frances Brody. Sisters on Bread Street is partly based on the story of her mother, who lived on Bread Street in Leeds as a child; it was published in a limited edition just after her mother's hundredth birthday, published in an expanded edition as Somewhere Behind the Morning, and republished in 2016 under its original title. Sixpence in her Shoe relates to the Leeds Children's Holiday Camp Association based at Silverdale, Lancashire, about which she has also written a factual history, Now I am a Swimmer. Sisters of Fortune is the tale of two girls of different financial backgrounds growing up in Leeds, and was republished as Halfpenny Dreams.
Her plays include Tressell, about Robert Tressell, author of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

Selected publications

Writing as Frances McNeil