Frances Fyfield
| Frances Hegarty | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1948 London |
| Pen name | Frances Fyfield |
| Occupation | Lawyer and writer |
| Nationality | English |
| Genres | Crime |
Frances Fyfield (born 1948) is the pseudonym of Frances Hegarty. Fyfield is a British lawyer and crime-writer.[1]
Born and brought up in Derbyshire, Frances Hegarty was mostly educated in convent schools[2] before reading English at Newcastle University. After graduation, she took a course in criminal law. She worked initially for the Metropolitan Police and later the Crown Prosecution Service. She claims "After a long diet of criminal law, including dangerous dogs, rape, mayhem and much, much murder, the indigestion of pity and fury provoked me to write. I wanted to write romance, but the domestically macabre always got in the way."[3] Fyfield has won several awards, including the Crime Writers' Association Duncan Lawrie Dagger for Blood From Stone in 2008 and the Silver Dagger for Deep Sleep. In addition the novel Safer than Houses was nominated for the Duncan Lawrie Dagger in 2006.
She also writes psychological thrillers under the name of Frances Hegarty, among them, The Playroom, Half Light and Let's Dance, which was published in 1995.
Her novels have been translated in fourteen different languages, and a number have been adapted for television. The most popular of Fyfield's novels, the Helen West series, have twice been adapted for television. Juliet Stevenson played Helen West in Trial by Fire (1999) and Amanda Burton later took on the role in a successful British television series in 2002.
It has been written[by whom?] that "The defining feature of Fyfield's novels is their astonishing generosity of spirit, which may seem somewhat incongruous given her subject matter: insanity, incest, violence (often murder), emptiness, suicide -- all at the darkest extreme of human experience. Yet each of her characters is accorded a distinctive voice, that humanizes even the most unregenerate of them (Charles Tysall in Shadows on the Mirror and Perfectly Pure and Good being a partial exception)".
[edit] Bibliography
Helen West Novels
- A Question of Guilt (1988) nominated for an Edgar Award
- Trial by Fire (1990) [US Title: Not That Kind of Place] Rumpole Award
- Deep Sleep (1991) Silver Dagger Award
- Shadow Play (1993)
- A Clear Conscience (1994)
- Without Consent (1996)
Sarah Fortune Novels
- Shadows on the Mirror (1989)
- Perfectly Pure and Good (1994)
- Staring at the Light (1999)
- Looking Down (2004)
- Safer Than Houses (2005)
- Cold to the Touch (2009)
Other Novels
- Blind Date (1998)
- Undercurrents (2000)
- The Nature of the Beast (2001)
- Seeking Sanctuary (2003)
- The Art of Drowning (2006)
- Blood From Stone (2008); Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award
Novels as Frances Hegarty
- The Playroom (1991)
- Half Light (1992)
- Let's Dance
[edit] Filmography
- Helen West (2002) TV Series
- The Blind Date (2000)
- Trial by Fire (1999) (TV)
[edit] Notes
- ^ Frances Fyfield, bookreporter.com, accessed July 2009
- ^ Fyfield, Frances. "Biography". francesfyfield.co.uk. http://www.francesfyfield.co.uk/biography.html. Retrieved 2011-01-18.
- ^ SkyARTS website, retrieved 5 May 2009 http://thebookshow.skyarts.co.uk/authors/9156/frances_fyfield.html
