Elizabeth Bankes is an experienced teacher and has worked in a number of private schools as well as at university. After completing a Masters of Creative Writing (Merit) at the University of Sydney, she began to write the whodunit, The Body in the Boarding House. Born in England, her family emigrated to New Zealand when she was a child. Elizabeth has lived in Sydney for many years with her second husband, a much younger Liverpudlian and is very close to her two children and the grandchildren.