Dying Days

Award-winning writer delivers a pulse-pounding espionage thriller. Missing soldiers, MI6 secrets and European partisans collide in a deadly game where the lines between lies and reality are fast disintegrating.

In the dying days of the Second World War, a new conflict is about to ignite.

May, 1945: After fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis, Tito's Yugoslav Army and Allied forces have come to a tense standoff in the city of Trieste. Every day, locals with fascist and Nazi ties are disappearing, arrested by Yugoslav soldiers. Meanwhile the Allies watch on, reluctant to become mired in yet another conflict.

But when rumours circulate that New Zealand soldiers are among the missing, the stakes begin to rise.

A British MI6 agent and a New Zealand intelligence officer must uncover the truth behind the rumours. But the schisms in the city are becoming harder to cross, and one wealthy family keeps getting in their way. In a mission where moral lines are hopelessly blurred and violence is a necessity, deciding whether they can trust their sources – or even one another – becomes a matter of life and death.

About the Author

Anthony Byrt is a New Zealand writer, award-winning art critic and the author of two books of non-fiction. Dying Days is his first novel, written while he was Kaipukahu Writer-in-Residence at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. He currently lives in Naarm/Melbourne (Australia) and Te Tai Tokerau/Northland (New Zealand).