Author Barbara Mertz was born in Canton, Illinois on September 29, 1927. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Egyptology from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in 1952. Her first three works were non-fiction titles dealing with topics in her field of study. These titles, "Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs," "Red Land, Black Land" and "Two Thousand Years in Rome" were written using her true name. She also writes novels under the pseudonymns Barbara Michaels and Elizabeth Peters. She is the author of the Amelia Peabody series, the Vicky Bliss series, and the Jacqueline Kirby series. In 1989, she won an Agatha for Naked Once More.