Guess Who? #3

I love a good mystery, don't you? I also love reading books by certain authors! Mystery + Authors = "Guess Who?" This meme works like this: every Friday I will post five facts about an author, each one a little more revealing then the one before, and I will give you the weekend to try and figure out who I'm talking about. The Monday following, I will post the answer. Sound like fun? If so, then here is the first one for the month of April:

1. This is a female author.
2. She wrote her first book as a challenge by her sister, Madge.
3. When one of her beloved characters "died" in one of her novels, his death appeared in the obituary section of the "The New York Times". In fact, he was given a FULL page.
4. This author isn't exactly - ahem - alive.
   
5. She is also known as "The Queen of Crime".

Sound familiar?