The name is Slaughter. Karin Slaughter.

The Atlantan just won the coveted Crime Writers Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award. Named for the creator of fiction's dashing James Bond character, it's given annually to the best thriller published in the United Kingdom.

Slaughter (no, that's not a pen name), is the bestselling author of more than a dozen densely-plotted and "true that"-detailed crime novels. She was honored for her latest, the Atlanta-set "Cop Town," (Read the AJC's review here). It takes place in 1974, when Maynard Jackson has just been elected the city's first black mayor and the two female cops at its center find themselves battling male resentment and egos, along with grisly crimes.

“(It’s) a fascinating story filled to the brim with rich and evocative period detail of 1970s Atlanta,” the judges said of “Cop Town” at the glittering awards ceremony held in London. “The characters are well-drawn and instantly convincing, helping the reader to be pulled through this dark and twisted story to the very end.”

A Georgia native whose books have sold some 30 million copies worldwide, Slaughter is also the founder of the SaveTheLibraries project, which has raised more than $250,000 for the DeKalb County (Georgia) Library Foundation. For more information on this and her books, go to www.karinslaughter.com

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