Grant Shanks grew up on farms and in the bushlands of Otago and Southland and has lived and worked around the world, including the USA, in a variety of occupations ranging from merchant seaman to professional body guard to advertising copywriter. Trained in the martial arts, Grant is a small arms expert and a gourmet cook. A keen traveller and dedicated fly fisherman and hunter, he is an aficionado of the writings of the late John D. MacDonald, James Ellroy and the other great writers of the American crime genre. He write under the pen name of *Andrew Grant*, too.