Frieda McFadden is a self-published author whose books are found almost exclusively on Amazon. McFadden is a physician specializing in brain injuries who often uses her medical education in her books, which include medical humor novels as well as psychological thrillers.

In The Inmate, McFadden uses her medical knowledge to develop some of the clinical scenes between Brooke and her patients at the prison. These include her discussion of pressure sores a paraplegic suffers from, as well as the best treatments for a clean fracture on a patient’s finger. To showcase her specialty in brain injuries, McFadden includes a scene of Brooke worrying that Shane Nelson might have a severe concussion; she knows that the decision to observe him rather than send him to a hospital for a CT scan might have catastrophic results.