Frank Lean is the nom-de-plume of Frank Leneghan. The reason for the nom-de-plume is that when he wrote his first book he was working as a teacher in a Manchester school. The chair of the school governors took exception to a member of staff writing about fictional Manchester criminals and tried to make life uncomfortable for the would be author. The book was published as 'Red for Rachel', the first in the Manchester private detective 'Dave Cunane' series.Frank comes from Bolton, Lancashire, England. His family are Irish on both sides, descended from people who settled in the industrial town after they escaped from the dire conditions in nineteenth century Ireland. Frank is married to Anne Mary McClean and has five grown up children. He took up writing in the 1990s and has had seven crime novels published. Frank's third book 'The Reluctant Investigator' was runner up for the Golden Dagger of the Crime Writer's Association. Frank's latest work 'Irish Jack's Women', set in Ireland at the time of the Irish Famine, is partly inspired by family memories and partly by interest in the history of the period. It represents a break from the adventures of the Manchester PI, Cunane, but involves plenty of detection by Joseph Locke, the hero of the book. In real life Locke was a railway pioneer but for the book he is a forerunner of Sherlock Holmes. An eighth novel in the Dave Cunane series is to be published on Amazon shortly.Frank now lives in the village of Poynton, Cheshire and is a full time writer.