Frances Shelley Wees (née Johnson) was born in 1902 in Gresham, Oregon. She lived most of her life in Canada, where she enjoyed a literary career spanning nearly five decades. A writer of mysteries and romances, she published over twenty novels, including The Maestro Murders (1931), Lost House (1938), Under the Quiet Water (1949), This Necessary Murder (1957), The Faceless Enemy (1966), and The Last Concubine (1970). Her 1956 mystery, The Keys of My Prison, has been reissued by Ricochet Books. Frances Shelley Wees died in 1982.