Name Catherine Aird | Role Novelist | |
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Nominations Barry Award for Best Short Story Books The Religious Body, Henrietta who?, A Late Phoenix, A Most Contagious Game, A Dead Liberty Similar Ruth Adam, Joan Aiken, Carol Topolski | ||
Catherine Aird (born 20 June 1930) is the pseudonym of novelist Kinn Hamilton McIntosh. She is the author of more than twenty crime fiction novels and several collections of short stories. Her witty, literate, and deftly plotted novels straddle the "cozy" and "police procedural" genres and are somewhat similar in flavor to those of Martha Grimes, Caroline Graham, M C Beaton, Margaret Yorke, and Pauline Bell.
Biography
Aird was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire in England. She attended the Waverley School and Greenhead High School, both in Huddersfield. As a young adult, she was bedridden due to a serious illness. Upon recovery, she worked as practice manager and dispenser for her father's medical practice in Sturry. Her first novel, The Religious Body, was published in 1966.
Aird served as Chair of the Crime Writers' Association from 1990 through 1991. She has been awarded an honorary M. A. from the University of Kent and the Crime Writers' Association 'Golden Handcuffs' Award for lifetime achievement. She also has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to the Girl Guides. She lives in the village of Sturry, near Canterbury, Kent and is active in village life.
Aird is best known for her successful Chronicles of Calleshire, a series of crime novels set in the fictional County of Calleshire, England, and featuring Detective Inspector C.D. Sloan of the Berebury CID Department, and his assistant, Detective Constable Crosby. She has also written and edited a series of village histories, and is an editor and contributing author on works regarding other writers and the art of writing.