Dying Days #author Anythony Byrt

 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.

To connect with Anthony ..
https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Dying-Days/Anthony-Byrt
https://www.instagram.com/anthony.byrt/ 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:03

Good morning, Anthony Burt. Welcome to Yellow Shelf.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Oh, thanks, Joe. It's really lovely to be here with you.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Oh, my pleasure. Congratulations. I have recently read your book, Dying Days. I am excited to share it with the audience. Tell us all about the book, Anthony.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Sure. So uh Dying Days is a uh kind of spy thriller mashed up with uh missing persons who done it. And it's um set against real events uh at the end of World War II in a city called Trieste, a very small place uh in the northeast corner of Italy. Uh and I became really interested in the story because there was a standoff there uh between two forces who were ostensibly allies at the end of World War II, um the New Zealand Army, who were the advanced troops of the British forces at that time, and also Tito's Yugoslav forces as well. And both sides had sort of worked together on each side of the Adriatic to get rid of the last of the Germans in that region, but then they sort of came to this very tense moment where they were trying to decide who got control of this very important port city of Trieste at the at the top of the Adriatic. So so yeah, so that sort of forms the backdrop for this sort of strange fiction that I've decided to um insert into those historical events.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yeah, and and you mentioned, you know, the curiosity that you had around this real history, you know, this this idea. Have you been to the place? Like, tell me about because I think when I was reading this, I was like, I think I did this backpacking 25 plus years ago. So yeah, tell us about that region around the Adriatic.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yeah, so um, I mean, I I have a bunch of reasons to be kind of attached to the place. I have um deep sort of family heritage um from the Dalmatian coast, uh which is now part of Croatia, but obviously was part of Yugoslavia for a really long time. So that's that's sort of south of Trieste. Uh and so yeah, Trieste is sort of this very strange city that's squeezed between Slovenia, Italy, and Austria. So it's part of Italy now, but it's been it's had a different status over time and throughout history as well. So so it's this sort of strange place that that mashes up all these different cultures. You know, the architecture is a is a mix, the food is a mix, the language is a mix. Um, but it the most important thing about it is it is really this very, very significant port at the top of the Adriatic. So for a lot of people um from Central Europe, you know, further further north, it was like the access point to the to the Mediterranean, really, and the way that people sort of um actually were shipped out of Europe and stuff too. So so it has this really strange history. Not a lot of people have been to it on their backpacking travels because it is in this kind of odd little pocket of Europe, but um, yeah, it's a great place nonetheless. So I've I've been there a a couple of times, a few times now, a long time ago. Yes, um, another time in between, and then you know, when we were sort of finishing up the the manuscript of Dying Days, I obviously wanted to make sure the the streets fit together in the way that I described them and stuff like that, you know?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

So yeah, yeah, awesome. And the book's been described as if you mentioned thriller, but espionage, you know, real events. Uh, do you want to tell me what inspired you to write? I mean, you you're a writer by career, I guess. So tell us a bit about that journey as an author and the inspiration.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah, sure. So I mean, I so I come from New Zealand, I live in Australia now, but um I and I've lived in a bunch of different places, but I suppose in New Zealand I'm sort of best known as a as a non-fiction writer and specifically somebody who writes a lot about contemporary art um and artists. So, you know, moving into kind of thrillers and spy fiction is a is a kind of odd an odd shift. Um, but fiction has always been my first love as a reader, and actually as a writer, I've I've always used sort of fiction techniques and things like that to develop my voice and to engage with my readers. Uh, but really it was the circumstances of the of the historical material and the historical events just made me feel like there was this great opportunity to write a thriller um against that setting. And the thing that really kind of got me excited about that idea was that at that time it was a city full of lies and competing interests. You know, like like there's this very tense kind of standoff. But in the in the background of that, there's all these tensions between Slovenian communities, Italian communities, there were fascists, there were Nazis, there were partisans who were trying to resist it all. And then in the middle of all that research, I discovered that there was this rumour that had been spreading um at the time during this tense standoff that several New Zealand soldiers had been disappeared by by the Yugoslav troops as well. And there's no evidence that that this occurred, you know, in the in the historical records, but it was a real rumour. And so I I got very interested in this line between truth and fiction, and that sort of seemed to lend itself really well to this idea of a kind of espionage thriller um with a sort of yeah, an intelligence dimension, I suppose, where where these these two um officers are trying to get to the bottom of what's of what's happened to these soldiers.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yeah. Well, it's a fascinating read. It got me thinking, you know, have I been to this part? Uh you know, have you like I was just yeah, I was immersed in the stories and the curiosity, and I don't want to give anything away because I want people to go by it. But um, yeah, like tell me, tell me your writing. Do you do you just like wake up and write blocks of four hours a day? Like, what's your writing style, or do you just write as is, or do you go to writers' retreats? Like, what tell me about you as an author?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

I I'm um I'm pretty undisciplined in the way that a lot of authors are. I I have friends who are writers who are like, right, I get up at 5 in the morning. Yeah, I'm at the keyboard at six, and I write till nine, and then I go to work, and like I'm not that guy at all. Um, but I I suppose the the thing that really gave the thrust to the writing for um dying days was that in 2023 I was given a year-long writer's residency at a university in New Zealand. Okay, and so that was this opportunity to basically just work on whatever I wanted, and so I had an office at the university, I had access to the university library and all its databases and everything else, and I had a year to write, which is just this immense privilege, right? So um, so that was probably my most disciplined period of writing simply because I had this office and I wanted to do it, you know. Um, so the writing of Dying Days happened in quite a compressed time presidency, or at least the first draft or the first version of it. Um but because my work is, you know, generally in my nonfiction as well, it's very research and travel heavy. Yeah. So it's my writing routine tends to be let's get as much material together as possible. Let's try and see these connections, let's try and build a connection with the place that's being described. And then I send I tend to write in quite big bursts, you know. So um, yeah, so that that's sort of you know, every every author has a different approach.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Yeah, no, and I think it makes it fascinating to hear from the author about their journey and their writing experience. And it's a plan to keep writing, Anthony. So you get to enjoy this one, the books available, um, you get to do interviews, like what what's beyond here? More writing.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Oh, absolutely. And I mean, you know, writing has been my life for a long time. You know, although this is my first novel, um, I have written other books. I've done a lot of journalism and a lot of criticism in the past, too. So, you know, writing has always been my my first love in the way that I I try to make a living. Um, you know, as you as you'll know from talking to many writers, that's not the easiest thing to do. But um, but yeah, I I'm I've got two new writing projects on the go at the moment, um, in terms of new novels. Yeah. And I have a another book uh about a very well-known New Zealand artist called Shane Cotton, which is coming out in October. So like this year's been pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Um I want to have you back for your next book in October. So please come back. That sounds great. No, we will support that.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Yeah, thank you very much. And and you know, the the nice thing about Dying Days is that it's obviously bring bringing a new audience to my work. Um not just in terms of a fiction readership, but also in terms of like connecting with an Australian readership now as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Because this is where exactly what I thought too. Yeah, I um enjoyed it, I learned a lot. It kind of got me curious about lots of things about yeah, war and you know, Europe. So, Anthony, well done. Thank you so much. I'm gonna say, um, if anyone's watching anywhere in the world, because you know, I have people listening in Europe, so people might be curious. Where do we connect to you and the book? I'm gonna put it in the show notes. I know you're on Instagram, I can put your publishers' details in, but do you have any socials web page? Point us in that direction.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Yeah, sure. I mean, Instagram is probably the best way to best way to find me on the socials. Um, my publisher here in Australia is a firm press who are really wonderful. Um, they're part of Simon and Schuster. So, you know, I'm sort of all over the place. Although the books uh currently just available in Australasia, um, we are hoping it'll be uh more widely available in in Europe and the UK UK soon, but it is available as an ebook wherever anybody wants to get hold of it. So um, so yeah, jump on your your preferred ebook um provider wherever you are, and you should be able to track down. And it will be on um audio from mid-September.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

There's an audio version coming too. Awesome. Well, Anthony, congratulations. Uh I'd love to have you back for your book later in the year and any future work. It's been good to meet you and good to chat. Um, I think people should get curious about this interesting little story.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Fabulous. Thanks so much, Joe. I really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Cheers.