Anja Shortland is Professor of Political Economy at King’s College, London, where she studies private governance in the world’s trickiest markets: hostages, fine art, and antiquities—and how people live, trade, and invest in complex and hostile territories. She has published widely on the subject of maritime crime and was part of the World Bank team developing land-side approaches to Somali piracy. Her book 'Kidnap: Inside the Ransom Business (OUP 2019)' examines the role of insurance in ordering the market for hostages, while 'Lost Art' (Unicorn 2021) studies negotiations over the return of looted and stolen artworks.