Catherine Aird


Kinn Hamilton McIntosh , 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. Aird was inducted into the prestigious Detection Club in 1981, and is a recipient of the 2015 Cartier Diamond Dagger award.

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. 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.
Her first novel, The Religious Body, was published in 1966. 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. 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.
In the 1988 Birthday Honours, she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire 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. She was awarded an honorary MA from the University of Kent in 1985. 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.

Death

Aird died at her home in Sturry on 21 December 2024 at the age of 94. She was buried in Sturry Cemetery.

Novels

  • The Religious Body
  • A Most Contagious Game
  • Henrietta Who
  • The Complete Steel
  • A Late Phoenix
  • His Burial Too
  • Slight Mourning
  • Parting Breath
  • Some Die Eloquent
  • Passing Strange
  • Last Respects
  • Harm's Way
  • A Dead Liberty
  • The Body Politic
  • A Going Concern
  • After Effects
  • Stiff News
  • Little Knell
  • Amendment of Life
  • A Hole in One
  • Losing Ground
  • Past Tense
  • Dead Heading
  • Learning Curve
  • Inheritance Tracks
  • ''Constable Country''

    Collections

  • The Catherine Aird Collection
  • The Second Catherine Aird Collection
  • The Third Catherine Aird Collection
  • Injury Time
  • Chapter and Hearse
  • ''Last Writes''

    Short stories

  • "Grave Import"
  • "Like To Die"
  • "Handsel Monday" in Past Poisons
  • "The Man Who Rowed for the Shore"
  • "Gold Frankincense and Murder"
  • "Cold Comfort"

    Non-fiction

  • The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing
  • Mystery Voices: Interviews with British Crime Writers
  • ''Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club''