Carol Ann Lee

Carol Ann Lee is a prolific English crime author and biographer who has written extensively about Anne Frank, the Holocaust, and Moors Murderers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.

Carol Ann Lee was born in Yorkshire in 1969 and grew up in Cornwall. While at The University of Manchester, her interest in Anne Frank intensified during a work placement at the city’s Jewish Museum.

Carol embarked on a one-woman campaign in 1992 to bring an exhibition about Anne Frank to Cornwall, educating young people about the Holocaust. Her debut book, Roses From The Earth: The Biography of Anne Frank, came out in 1999, received acclaim and appeared in fifteen languages.

The biography of Anne's father, The Hidden Life of Otto Frank (2002), was a Guardian Book of the Week. Her research into the Frank family's betrayal prompted the Dutch government to reopen the case. She co-wrote A Friend Called Anne with Anne's best friend Jacqueline van Maarsen, and extensively covered the Holocaust for children.

Since 2005, Carol has lived in the UK after living in Amsterdam. As a fiction writer, she achieved critical acclaim with Come Back to Me and The Winter of the World.

However, Carol Ann Lee returned to non-fiction with One of Your Own: The Life and Death of Myra Hindley (2010), a definitive study of Hindley and the Moors Murders case. Collaborating with David Smith, a key witness in the Moors trial, Carol co-wrote Witness (2011), later republished as Evil Relations.

Her biographical works expanded to include A Fine Day for a Hanging: The Ruth Ellis Story (2012) and The Murders at White House Farm (2015).

Somebody's Mother, Somebody's Daughter: True Stories from the Victims and Survivors of the Yorkshire Ripper (2019) explores the impact of the Yorkshire Ripper case on women. It was optioned for television on the strength of its outline by a BAFTA-award-winning team.

With her co-author Peter Howse, Carol has recently completed The Pottery Cottage Murders, a factual account of the 1977 case involving escaped prisoner Billy Hughes, who held a family hostage in their Derbyshire home, resulting in four murders.

Carol Ann Lee lives in Yorkshire, England.

Photo credit: www.carolannlee.co.uk