Jane Aiken Hodge was born near Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Decmber 4, 1917. Her father was the Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Conrad Aiken. She attended Oxford University and Radcliff College. She wrote about 30 suspense novels and historical novels. She was a longtime believer in the right of people to end their own lives. In 2009 she chose to do this to the shock of her two grown daughters.