Renowned Writers – Janet Neel Cohen

Every month, as we celebrate the breadth of our alumnae community, we highlight former pupils who have become published authors.

Janet Neel Cohen (Class of 1958) is a British lawyer and crime fiction writer.  She graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1962 with a BA Hons in Law and started to work as a practising solicitor in 1965.

In 1988, she embarked on a writing career as a crime fiction novelist when the first book in her ‘Francesca Wilson and John McLeish series’ Death’s Bright Angel was published.  There have since been seven more titles in this series, two of which were short listed for the ‘Gold Dagger’ award for crime writing.  She has also published three titles under her married name Janet Cohen: The Highest Bidder (1992),  Children of a Harsh Winter (1995) and Ticket to Ride (2005). 

She became Baroness Cohen of Pimlico in the City of Westminster in 2000 and sits as a Labour peer in the House of Lords. She is also an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge and former governor of the BBC.