Maxim Voland is the pseudonym of a successful German historian and the author of more than fifty novels. His books, which regularly hit the SPIEGEL bestseller list, have been translated into several languages and have a total circulation of more than five million copies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The first part of the pseudonym, ‘Maxim’ was taken for its Russian connotations and might also be read as an abbreviated form of ‘Maximum’. ‘Voland’, meanwhile, is a small homage to Mikhail Bulgakov; it is the name of the devil in The Master and Margarita and aptly chosen: there is certainly no shortage of devilry in Voland’s novel. The author is planning to write further devilish thrillers and crime novels under the pseudonym, all with a focus on unusual present-day scenarios