Frankie Bailey is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice and a crime novelist. Her research focuses on crime history, mass media and pop culture. She is the author of the Lizzie Stuart and Hannah McCabe mystery series.

Bailey is working on a reference book that maps the cultural and historical significance of nine of the most renown gangster movies (including The Grandfather (1998), White Heat (1949), Scarface (1990), American Gangster (2007) and Good Fellas (1990), among others) as well as the television series The Sopranos.

The book explores the impact of the Motion Picture Production Code or the "Hays Code" of the 1930s, the emergence of the "G-Man" as a protagonist, and the role of fashion in the genre.