Frances Noyes Hart

Born Frances Newbold Noyes in August 1890, she was an American writer whose short stories appeared in Scribner’s, The Saturday Evening Post, and Ladies’ Home Journal. She also wrote under forms of her name including F. N. Hart and Frances Newbold Hart.

Her best-known novel is The Bellamy Trial (1927), a murder case story inspired by the Hall–Mills case and often noted as an early legal thriller. She went on to publish other mystery novels, including Hide in the Dark and The Crooked Lane, while building a reputation for courtroom tension and careful plotting.

Biographical sources also note that she was the daughter of newspaper publisher Frank Brett Noyes, studied in the United States and Europe, and served during World War I before returning to literary work. She died on October 25, 1943.