James Byrne

The resurgence of Russian power in the Arctic and High North will be a key consideration for NATO planners. The Alliance’s northern flank represents both a potential vulnerability due to its relative isolation and an area in which NATO enjoys options for horizontal escalation in a conflict. Moreover, as the effects of climate change create opportunities for both navigation and resource extraction, peacetime control over the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and a contest to establish effective administrative control in this area are likely. Disagreements regarding the degree of Russia’s jurisdiction over the NSR could, for example, simmer into a form of sub-threshold competition. The purpose of this Whitehall Paper will be to examine the balance of power between NATO and Russia in this critical region in order to establish the level of ambition that the capabilities being developed by Russia can support.

Dez Limerick has his considerable skills pushed to the limit when, to rescue a friend, he has to get to--and get into--a state of the art facility on full lockdown, with considerable forces determined to stop him. Desmond Aloysius Limerick--'Dez' to all who know him--is a man with a shadowy past, certain hard-to-replicate skills, and a reputation as a good man to have when the going gets tough. Dez is doing his best to enjoy his retirement, wandering the country, doing what interests him, and occasionally helping friends when they find themselves needing any of his particular skills--mundane or extraordinary. For Dez was trained as a 'gatekeeper' - someone who can open any door, keep it open, and control who does and does not go through. It's those skills that are now in demand when the State Department comes calling looking for his help. A multinational scientific research facility on the coast of Newfoundland has gone dark, the facility on full lockdown, and no one can get in or out. No one knows what is going on, but it can't be good. And a close friend of Dez is presumed locked inside the facility along with everyone else. Even getting to the facility is an insurmountable challenge. The weather has flights grounded, some shadowy group is doing everything they can to impede the rescue team's progress, and hidden enemies are embedded in the rescue team. But anyone who thinks this is more than one man can face has never met Dez Limerick.

The poet writes: ‘I’m always interested in the possibilities of change, moving through forms and aesthetic modes, and I’d like to think this Selected Poems epitomises these kinds of shifts’.

Desmond Aloysius Limerick ('Dez' to his friends and close personal enemies) is a man with a shadowy past, certain useful hard-won skills, and, if one digs deep enough, a reputation as a good man to have at your back. He was trained as a 'gatekeeper' - he can open any door, keep it open as long as necessary, and control who does - and does not - go through. Now retired from his previous life, Dez still tries to keep his skills up to date. Knocking around the country, picking up the occasional gig as a guitarist, Dez is contacted by a friend in urgent need of his musical skills. At his behest, Dez flies to the East Coast to a gig at the brand new massive complex, the Liberty Centre. But he's barely landed before he finds himself in the midst of a terrorist attack, a group has taken over the whole centre and thousands of hostage lives are in danger. With the semi-willing help of a talented thief, Dez takes on the impossible task of outfighting and outwitting a literal army. But that's just the beginning, as Dez learns he was actually lured there under false pretenses, by someone who knows more about Dez, his past and his skills, than any living person should.

In this sequel to the highly praised The Gatekeeper, Dez Limerick, one of the best new thriller heroes returns. Desmond Aloysius Limerick ("Dez" to his friends and close personal enemies) is a man with a shadowy past, certain useful hard-won skills, and, if one digs deep enough, a reputation as a good man to have at your back. Now retired from his previous life, Dez is just a bloke with a winning smile, a bass guitar, and bullet wounds that paint a road map of past lives. Jaleh Swann, a business journalist hot on the trail of an auditor who was mugged and killed, lands in the hospital just one day after her Portland apartment is ransacked. When Jaleh's sister, Raziah, reaches out to an old friend for help, Dez has no choice but to answer. The Swann sisters have been pulled into a dizzying web of cover-ups and danger. At the center lies an insidious Oregon-based tech corporation, Clockjack, which has enough money and hired guns to silence just about anyone--including this rag-tag trio. Luckily, Dez's speciality is not just to open doors, but keep them open--and protect those working to expose Clockjack's secrets. More stands in the way of the truth than just one corporation. When hired thugs come to the finish the job and attack the Swann sisters at the hospital, Dez does what he does best. Now, the two captured men (and the corpse Dez left behind) attract the attention of not just Clockjack, but of the Portland police, the D. E. A, and the U. S. Marshalls. Dez and the Swann sisters are on the run from powers beyond their control and means. Outnumbered, under resourced and outgunned, Dez must use all his skills to keep his friends safe and stand up to corporate conniving. After all, the one thing Clockjack didn't count on? A good man with a simple job to do.

Desmond Aloysius Limerick ('Dez' to his friends and close personal enemies) is a man with a shadowy past, certain useful hard-won skills, and, if one digs deep enough, a reputation as a good man to have at your back. Now retired from his previous life, Dez is just a bloke with a winning smile, a bass guitar, and bullet wounds that paint a road map of past lives. Raziah Swann calls him with an urgent request for help. Jaleh, her sister, has been attacked and seriously injured and hospitalised, just one day after her apartment was ransacked. She's a business journalist who was working on a profile of an auditor who was himself mugged and killed. The firm he was auditing is Clockjack - a major multi-national technology company headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Fearing that there was more coming, she asks Dez to come to Portland. Her worst fears were right - and the sisters were both attacked in the hospital by a trio of hired thugs, a trio who weren't expecting to face Desmond Limerick. The two captured men (and one corpse) have now attracted the attention the U. S. Marshall's, the D. E. A., as well as the Portland police, with the only thin thread that connects them leading straight back to Clockjack, a massive corporation with ties and resources that dwarf most nations. And only Dez stands in the way of whatever comes next.

James Byrne's The Gatekeeper introduces Dez Limerick in the most anticipated thriller in years. A highly trained team of mercenaries launches a well-planned, coordinated attack on a well-guarded military contractor - but they didn't count on one thing, the right man being in the wrong place at the right time. Desmond Aloysius Limerick ("Dez" to all) is a retired mercenary, and enthusiastic amateur musician, currently in Southern California, enjoying the sun and sitting in on the occasional gig, when the hotel he's residing at falls under attack. A skilled team attempts to kidnap the Chief legal counsel of Triton Expeditors, a major military contractor - in fact, Petra Alexandris is the daughter of the CEO - but their meticulously-planned, seamlessly executed scheme runs into the figurative 'spanner-in-the-works, ' Dez himself. After foiling the attack, and with nothing better to do, Dez agrees to help Alexandris with another problem she's having - someone has embezzled more than a billion dollars from her company and left very few tracks behind. But Dez is a gatekeeper - one who opens doors and keeps them open - and this is just a door of another kind. And the door he opens leads to a dangerous conspiracy involving media manipulation, militias, an armed coup, and an attempt to fracture the United States themselves. There's only one obstacle between the conspirators and success - and that is Dez, The Gatekeeper.

A NATION IN DANGER. ONLY ONE MAN CAN SAVE IT. 'Great plot, great pacing, and a voice that jumps off the page' GREGG HURWITZ 'Adrenaline charged...an action-packed, twist-a-minute thrill ride' LISA GARDNERDez Limerick is a retired mercenary, previously known as The Gatekeeper - the man who opened doors that others wanted shut. He's checking out sunny California when his hotel suddenly falls under attack. In the wrong place at the right time, Dez stops a meticulously planned scheme to kidnap Petra Alexandris, the daughter of a major military contractor. While helping her uncover a secret plot buried within her father's company, Dez exposes a conspiracy that becomes more sinister at every explosive turn: a deadly operation involving media manipulation, militias, an armed coup, and an attempt to fracture the United States themselves. There's only one obstacle between the conspirators and the downfall of a nation . . . The Gatekeeper.'The Gatekeeper is a flat-out, high speed winner. I loved it.' ROBERT CRAIS

Of Breaking Glass is an elegiac sequence for James Byrne's brother, Robin, who passed away unexpectedly during the initial Covid lockdown. These poems, set in California's Death Valley during a heatwave, are an attempt of one sibling to bury another's first memory: the sound of breaking glass. Ritualising loss, memory and language, this tender, brilliant book, replete with stunning colour photographs, evokes the most intimate kind of writing. Of Breaking Glass is a series of poems that hold out the possibility of becoming something more than our inevitable, eventual end.

A NATION IN DANGER. ONLY ONE MAN CAN SAVE IT. 'Great plot, great pacing, and a voice that jumps off the page' GREGG HURWITZ 'Adrenaline charged...an action-packed, twist-a-minute thrill ride' LISA GARDNERDez Limerick is a retired mercenary, previously known as The Gatekeeper - the man who opened doors that others wanted shut. He's checking out sunny California when his hotel suddenly falls under attack. In the wrong place at the right time, Dez stops a meticulously planned scheme to kidnap Petra Alexandris, the daughter of a major military contractor. While helping her uncover a secret plot buried within her father's company, Dez exposes a conspiracy that becomes more sinister at every explosive turn: a deadly operation involving media manipulation, militias, an armed coup, and an attempt to fracture the United States themselves. There's only one obstacle between the conspirators and the downfall of a nation . . . The Gatekeeper.'The Gatekeeper is a flat-out, high speed winner. I loved it.' ROBERT CRAIS

James Byrne is a widely-travelled poet and editor, and in this, his 4th book from Arc, he reflects on the places, their histories and people that have made a lasting impression on him. He journeys to the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox' Bazar; through Bangaladesh on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway; from Mexico City to the ancient city of Puebla and back again; from Quito to the Ecuadorian city of Esmeraldas and back to Peru; through Turkey, along the north coast of Germany, from Buenos Airies to Uruguay and back and finally to the Spanish city of Granada. So vivid are his descriptions of his travels that the reader is enveloped in colours, sounds, scents and surrounded by people.

These poems were written to accompany the Los Caprichos images, originally published by Francisco Goya on February 6th, 1799. The images are part of the original `Prado' manuscript, republished by Dover Publications in 1969. Excerpts from this sequence first appeared in Ambit, Buenos Aires Poetry, Blackbox Manifold, Granta, The Common, Long Poem Magazine, Morning Star, Poetry Review and on University of Liverpool's `Citizens of Everywhere' blog. The author is grateful to the editors of these publications. A brief selection also appeared in Everything Broken Up Dances (Tupelo Press, 2015).

These poems were written to accompany the Los Caprichos images, originally published by Francisco Goya on February 6th, 1799. The images are part of the original `Prado' manuscript, republished by Dover Publications in 1969. Excerpts from this sequence first appeared in Ambit, Buenos Aires Poetry, Blackbox Manifold, Granta, The Common, Long Poem Magazine, Morning Star, Poetry Review and on University of Liverpool's `Citizens of Everywhere' blog. The author is grateful to the editors of these publications. A brief selection also appeared in Everything Broken Up Dances (Tupelo Press, 2015).

Expanding on themes present in Blood/Sugar, James Byrne refuses one defining aesthetic or mode of writing in his work, instead choosing to fluctuate between the lyric, experimental, confessional and the political. These are poems that explore aspects of childhood, social activism and satire. There are correspondences with existing texts; Philomela finds herself in Nazi-occupied Paris during the Second World War and the villanelle re-tracks Rimbaud through London. Elsewhere Byrne seeks to defy Robert Graves' notion that there is "no poetry in money", preferring to rally against issues of austerity and hierarchical power in society. White Coins rewards the reader with a nomadic poetry for the 21st century; one that mingles personal, social and historical spaces whilst celebrating, at all times, linguistic versatility and innovation.

Expanding on themes present in Blood/Sugar, James Byrne refuses one defining aesthetic or mode of writing in his work, instead choosing to fluctuate between the lyric, experimental, confessional and the political. These are poems that explore aspects of childhood, social activism and satire. There are correspondences with existing texts; Philomela finds herself in Nazi-occupied Paris during the Second World War and the villanelle re-tracks Rimbaud through London. Elsewhere Byrne seeks to defy Robert Graves' notion that there is "no poetry in money", preferring to rally against issues of austerity and hierarchical power in society. White Coins rewards the reader with a nomadic poetry for the 21st century; one that mingles personal, social and historical spaces whilst celebrating, at all times, linguistic versatility and innovation.

Bones Will Crow is the first anthology of contemporary Burmese poets in any language, and includes the work of Burmese poets in exile, in prison and undercover. Introduced by Zeyar Lynn, with a Preface by Ruth Padel. The poets featured are Tin Moe (1933-2007), Thitsar Ni (b. 1946), Aung Cheimt (b. 1948), Ma Ei (b. 1948), Maung Chaw Nwe (1949-2002), Maung Pyiyt Min (b. 1953), Khin Aung Aye (b. 1956), Zeyar Lynn (b. 1958), Maung Thein Zaw (b. 1959), Moe Zaw (b. 1964), Moe Way (b. 1969), Ko Ko Thett (b. 1972), Eaindra (b. 1973), Pandora (b. 1974) and Maung Yu Py (b. 1981). James Byrne's second poetry collection, Blood/Sugar, was published by Arc in 2009. He is the co-editor of Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century (Bloodaxe, 2009). Ko Ko Thett left Burma following detention for his role in the Rangoon student uprising in 1996. His first collection in English, The Burden of Being Bama, is forthcoming.

A comprehensive review of current endovascular techniques for the treatment of cerebral aneurysms, this is a practical manual for those practicing, or intending to practice, this rapidly expanding branch of minimally invasive surgery. The authors provide descriptions based on an extensive combined experience of clinical management, technical problems, complications and recent results, and discuss the limitations and role of combined extravasular/endovascular techniques.