April's Affections and Intrigues: Love and Mystery Bloom
Elizabeth Peters
Barbara G. Mertz studied at the Oriental Institute of the
University of Chicago, receiving an M.A. in 1950 and a
Ph.D. in Egyptology in 1952. In 1950 she married Richard
Mertz and had two children, Elizabeth and Peter. She was
divorced in 1969. A past president of American Crime
Writers League, she presently serves on the Editorial
Advisory Board of KMT, A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt
and the Board of Governors of The American Research Center
in Egypt, as well as the Editorial Board of The Writer. She
is also a member of the Egypt Exploration Society, the
James Henry Breasted Circle of the Oriental Institute, and
the National Organization for Women. Under her own name she
is the author of Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs, A Popular
history of Ancient Egypt, and Red Land, Black Land, Daily
Life in Ancient Egypt. Under her pseudonym as Barbara
Michaels she has written twenty nine novels of suspense. As
Elizabeth Peters, she has produced twenty-nine mystery-
suspense novels, many of them set in Egypt and the Middle
East. Dr. Mertz was awarded a D.H.L. from Hood College in
1989. The Mystery Writers of America awarded her the MWA
Grandmaster in 1998.