David John Young is an English novelist whose crime thriller series featuring a fictional Volkspolizei detective, Karin Müller, is set in 1970s East Germany.
[5] Young says the inspiration for the series came after his indie pop band The Candy Twins toured Germany in 2007 and he read Anna Funder's non-fiction book Stasiland between gigs.
[15] In 2022, Young released a stand-alone crime novel set in Hull in World War Two, Death In Blitz City.
[16] Stasi Child won the 2016 CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger[17] and was longlisted for the 2016 Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.
[18] A draft of the novel won the City University London 2014 crime fiction prize, sponsored by the Peters, Fraser & Dunlop literary agency who now represent Young.