Catherine Aird

Catherine Aird is the pseudonym of author Kinn Hamilton McIntosh. She was born in Yorkshire and intended to follow in her father’s footsteps and study medicine. She had to abandon that idea when she came down with a serious kidney condition that required an extended period of bed rest. During that time, she read a great deal of detective fiction. She wrote "two or three bad novels before turning to crime, so to speak — definitely a case of poacher turned gamekeeper." In 1966, she published The Religious Body, and since then has written more than 20 crime fiction novels and story collections. Many of them feature Detective Chief Inspector C.D. Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby of the CID in the fictional town of Berebury, West Calleshire, England. She served as chairman of the Crime Writers' Association from 1990-91. She holds an honorary M.A. from the University of Kent and received the M.B.E. for her services to the Girl Guides Association. She has made her home in a small village near Canterbury, Kent for most of her life, living in the same house since 1946.