Nikolai Tolstoy is a highly recognized historian and biographer. He is a White Russian and heir to the senior line of the Tolstoy family. His great-grandfather was a cousin of the world-famous novelist. In compiling Victims of Yalta, Tolstoy spent five years of intensive research traveling all over Europe to interview survivors and inspect sites of repatriation operations. His previous works include The Coming of the King, The Quest for Merlin, The Minister and the Massacres, The Night of the Long Knives, Stalin's Secret War, and The Tolstoys. He lives in Somerset, England.