{{Short description|English novelist (1930–2024)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2016}} {{Use British English|date=October 2016}} {{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see :Template:Infobox writer/doc --> | honorific_prefix = | name = Catherine Aird | honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100|MBE}} | image = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = Kinn Hamilton McIntosh | birth_date = {{Birth date|1930|06|20|df=y}} | birth_place = Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England | death_date = {{Death date and age|2024|12|21|1930|06|20|df=y}} | death_place = Sturry, Kent, England | resting_place = | occupation = {{hlist|Novelist|short story writer}} | genre = {{hlist|Murder mystery|detective story|crime fiction}} | movement = | notableworks = }}
'''Kinn Hamilton McIntosh''' {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100|MBE}} (20 June 1930 – 21 December 2024), known professionally as '''Catherine Aird''', was an English novelist. She was 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", "traditional" and "police procedural" genres and are somewhat similar in flavour to those of Martha Grimes, Caroline Graham, M. C. Beaton, Margaret Yorke, and Pauline Bell.<ref name="CrimeReads2020"/> Aird was inducted into the prestigious Detection Club in 1981, and is a recipient of the 2015 Cartier Diamond Dagger award.<ref name="CrimeReads2020"/>
== Life and career == Aird was born in Huddersfield, West Riding of Yorkshire in England, the daughter of Dr and Mrs R.A.C. McIntosh. She attended the Waverley School and Greenhead High School, both in Huddersfield. As a young adult, she was bedridden due to a serious illness.<ref name="Rue Morgue Press: Aird">{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20080704165853/http://www.ruemorguepress.com/authors/aird.html Rue Morgue Press: Aird]}} 2008 ]</ref> Upon recovery, she gave up her plans to study medicine at Edinburgh University, instead working as practice manager and dispenser for her father's medical practice in Sturry, near Canterbury, Kent, giving her a familiarity with drugs and poison she put to use in her crime fiction.<ref name="ReferenceA">Rosemary Herbert, ''Who's Who in Crime and Mystery Writing'', Oxford University Press.</ref><ref name="CrimeReads2020">{{cite web |last1=Nyren |first1=Neil |title=Catherine Aird: A Crime Reader's Guide to the Classics |url=https://crimereads.com/catherine-aird-a-crime-readers-guide-to-the-classics/ |website=CrimeReads |access-date=17 April 2025 |date=24 April 2020}}</ref>
Her first novel, ''The Religious Body,'' was published in 1966.<ref name="CrimeReads2020"/> Aird was 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, and his assistant, Detective Constable Crosby.<ref name="CrimeReads2020"/> She also wrote and edited a series of village histories, and was an editor and contributing author on works regarding other writers and the art of writing.
Aird served as chair of the Crime Writers' Association from 1990 through 1991. She was awarded the CWA Golden Handcuffs award for lifetime achievement and the Diamond Dagger for an outstanding lifetime's contribution to the genre, in 2015.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://thecwa.co.uk/catherine-aird|title=Diamond Dagger 2015 Winner {{!}} Catherine Aird| publisher= The Crime Writers' Association}}</ref>
In the 1988 Birthday Honours, she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to the Girl Guides Association, for which she served as chairman of the Guides’ U.K. Finance Committee, and then assistant treasurer of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.<ref name="Rue Morgue Press: Aird"/><ref>{{London Gazette|issue=51365 |date=10 June 1988 |page=15|supp=y}}</ref> She was awarded an honorary MA from the University of Kent in 1985.<ref name="CrimeReads2020"/> She lived since the war in Sturry, a village in East Kent, where she took an active interest in local affairs, serving on the Parish Council for several years.<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="CrimeReads2020"/>
==Death== Aird died at her home in Sturry on 21 December 2024 at the age of 94. She was buried in Sturry Cemetery.<ref>{{cite news |title=Catherine Aird, crime writer whose classic whodunnits were shot through with waspish wit |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2025/01/10/catherine-aird-classic-whodunnits-waspish-wit-died-obituary/ |access-date=10 January 2025 |publisher=The Telegraph |date=10 January 2025}}</ref><ref>[https://www.kfhs.org.uk/obituary-kinn-hamilton-mcintosh-mbe-1404 Obituary: Kinn Hamilton McIntosh MBE]</ref>
== Bibliography ==
===Novels=== * ''The Religious Body'' (1966) {{ISBN|978-1601870124}} * ''A Most Contagious Game'' (1967) {{ISBN|978-1601870025}} * ''Henrietta Who'' (1968) {{ISBN|978-9997502155}} * ''The Complete Steel'' (1969) [The Stately Home Murder] {{ISBN|9780006132929}} * ''A Late Phoenix'' (1970) {{ISBN|978-0002314589}} * ''His Burial Too'' (1973) {{ISBN|978-1601870384}} * ''Slight Mourning'' (1975) {{ISBN|978-1601870513}} * ''Parting Breath'' (1977) {{ISBN|978-0002316163}} * ''Some Die Eloquent'' (1979) {{ISBN|978-1982632915}} * ''Passing Strange'' (1980) {{ISBN|978-0002316583}} * ''Last Respects'' (1982) {{ISBN|978-0385182560}} * ''Harm's Way'' (1984) {{ISBN|978-0385195423}} * ''A Dead Liberty'' (1986) {{ISBN|978-0385235549}} * ''The Body Politic'' (1990) {{ISBN|978-0385417808}} * ''A Going Concern'' (1993) {{ISBN|978-0312114237}} * ''After Effects'' (1996) {{ISBN|978-0312142704}} * ''Stiff News'' (1998) {{ISBN|9780333736524}} * ''Little Knell'' (2001) {{ISBN|978-0312269838}} * ''Amendment of Life'' (2002) {{ISBN|978-0333907634}} * ''A Hole in One'' (2005) {{ISBN|978-0749082925}} * ''Losing Ground'' (2007) {{ISBN|9780749080501}} * ''Past Tense'' (2010) {{ISBN|978-0312672911}} * ''Dead Heading'' (2014) {{ISBN|978-0749014575}} * ''Learning Curve'' (2016) {{ISBN|978-0749020194}} * ''Inheritance Tracks'' (2019) {{ISBN|978-0749024260}} * ''Constable Country'' (2023) {{ISBN|978-0749030759}}
===Collections=== * ''The Catherine Aird Collection'' (1993) {{ISBN|978-0330326452}} * ''The Second Catherine Aird Collection'' (1994) {{ISBN|978-0330338400}} * ''The Third Catherine Aird Collection'' (1997) {{ISBN|978-0330352413}} * ''Injury Time'' (short stories, 1994) {{ISBN|978-0333625897}} * ''Chapter and Hearse'' (short stories, 2003) {{ISBN|978-0312290849}} * ''Last Writes'' (short stories, 2014) {{ISBN|978-0749016272}}
===Short stories=== * "Grave Import" (1996) {{ISBN|0727851322}} * "Like To Die" (1997) * "Handsel Monday" in ''Past Poisons'' (1998) {{ISBN|0747275017}} * "The Man Who Rowed for the Shore" (1998) {{ISBN|0195086031}} * "Gold Frankincense and Murder" (2000) * "Cold Comfort" (2001) {{ISBN|0747266174}}
===Non-fiction=== * ''The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing'' (1999) {{ISBN|0195072391}} * ''Mystery Voices: Interviews with British Crime Writers'' (1991) {{ISBN|0893702781}} * ''Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club'' (2020) {{ISBN|978-0008380137}}
==See also== * Sloan and Crosby
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [http://www.catherineaird.com/ Official website] (dead)
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aird, Catherine}} Category:1930 births Category:2024 deaths Category:20th-century English novelists Category:21st-century English novelists Category:20th-century pseudonymous writers Category:21st-century pseudonymous writers Category:Cartier Diamond Dagger winners Category:English crime fiction writers Category:Members of the Detection Club Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:People from Sturry Category:20th-century pseudonymous women writers Category:English women mystery writers Category:English mystery writers Category:Writers from Huddersfield Category:20th-century English women novelists Category:21st-century English women novelists Category:21st-century pseudonymous women writers