Nancy Pickard is a four-time Edgar Award nominee, most recently for The Virgin of Small Plains. She is the winner of the Anthony Award, the Macavity Award, and three Agatha Awards. Her short stories have also won numerous accolades. Pickard has been a national board member of the Mystery Writers of America and the president of Sisters in Crime, and she is a member of PEN America. She lives in Merriam, Kansas.

The late Virginia Rich is the author of three previous Eugenia Potter mysteries, and, with Nancy Pickard, of The 27-Ingredient Chili con Carne Murders. Like her heroine, Mrs. Rich lived on a cattle ranch in Arizona and also had a cottage off the coast of Maine.