Real name: Marion Gibbons, née McChesney

M. C. Beaton (born 10 June 1936, Glasgow, Scotland – died 30 December 2019) was a Scottish popular and prolific writer of romance and mystery novels since 1979. She also wrote under a number of other pseudonyms including: Ann Fairfax, Charlotte Ward, Helen Crampton, Jennie Tremaine, Marion Chesney, and Sarah Chester.

As M. C. Beaton she wrote the Agatha Raisin and Hamish McBeth series.