'For every war is a secret war, known only to those who were there. Whatever you say, however you say it, you can never explain that despite the fire, the fear, the smoke, the chaos, the killing, the madness and the loss, there exists something far beyond the trite accounting of collective risk and mortality: the best kept secret of battle - the shared and terrible love of it all'. Anthony Loyd spares us little as with deft and certain hand he navigates the reader through the violent currents of the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, all the while dragging the carcass of a heroin habit behind him, in this searing war time memoir of love and friendship, betrayal and loss.