Happy 81st birthday, Catherine Aird.

British author Catherine Aird, creator of Detective Chief Inspector C. D. Sloan and a master of the village mystery, was born today in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, in 1930. In 1966 she published her excellent first mystery, The Religious Body (murder in a convent). Aird also is an accomplished short story writer (see Malice Domestic 6; the Chapter and Hearse collection). Rue Morgue Press has reprinted a number of her books.