Award-winning author Terry Shames is the author of eight previous Samuel Craddock mysteries. As well as winning the Macavity Award for Best First Novel, A Killing at Cotton Hill was also nominated for The Strand Critics Award. The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake won the RT Critics Award for Best Mystery. Her books have also been nominated for Left Coast Crime Awards for Best Mystery. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and on the board of Mystery Writers of America.