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Frances Kirkwood Crane
Frances Kirkwood Crane (October 27, 1890 - November 6, 1981) was an American mystery author, who introduced private investigator Pat Abbott and his future wife Jean in her first no...view moreFrances Kirkwood Crane (October 27, 1890 - November 6, 1981) was an American mystery author, who introduced private investigator Pat Abbott and his future wife Jean in her first novel, The Turquoise Shop (1941). The Abbotts investigated crimes in a total of 26 volumes, each with a color in the title.
Crane was born in Lawrenceville, Illinois and hailed from a wealthy, well-educated family; most of her male relatives were doctors, and her aunt Nancy may have earned a master’s degree, highly unusual for a woman of that time.
Her husband was the wealthy advertising executive Ned Crane, and throughout their marriage Frances regularly published articles in The New Yorker, where she became known for her dry, sophisticated sense of humour. She had an extended stay in Germany towards the end of the 1930s, but her liberal opinions and outspokenness soon put her at odds with the rising tide of Nazism, resulting in her expulsion from Germany.
After leaving behind Nazi Germany, having been recently divorced and faced with mounting college bills from her only daughter, Nancy, Frances began formulating detective stories, upon realising that her old fiction—gentle satires of English culture—were going out of fashion among modern American readers, who were now supporting the British in World War II.
She published her first crime novel, The Turquoise Shop, in 1941, after hearing about a real-life incident in a jeweller’s shop, and subsequently produced 25 more mystery novels, taking early retirement by 1968.
She died in an Albuquerque, New Mexico nursing home in 1981, aged 91. Her ashes were scattered across her home town of Lawrenceville.view less