G.D. Abson is the author of Motherland, the first in his Senior Investigator Natalya Ivanova series set in Vladimir Putin's Russia. Motherland is a Times/ Sunday Times Crime Club Star Pick and has been shortlisted for a Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger. G.D. (alias Garry David) was born in County Durham, England, and brought up on army bases in Germany and Singapore before returning to the UK. He developed a lifelong obsession with Russia after studying the revolution at school and Russian politics at university as the Soviet Union collapsed.