Dan Billany was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 novelist.

Billany was born and raised in Hull

Kingston upon Hull

Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...

. He joined the Labour League of Youth and later the Hull Branch of the Socialist Party of Great Britain

Socialist Party of Great Britain

The Socialist Party of Great Britain , is a small Marxist political party within the impossibilist tradition. It is best known for its advocacy of using the ballot box for revolutionary purposes; opposition to reformism; and its early adoption of the theory of state capitalism to describe the...

, but was expelled from the latter in 1933 for his involvement in an internal dispute. He later joined the National Unemployed Workers' Movement

National Unemployed Workers' Movement

The National Unemployed Workers' Movement was a British organisation set up in 1921 by members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. It aimed to draw attention to the plight of unemployed workers during the post World War I slump, the 1926 General Strike and later the Great Depression, and to...

.

Billany received a degree in English

English studies

English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...

 from the University College of Hull in 1937. His career in teaching was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

; Billany joined the army in 1940 and became an officer in the East Yorkshire Regiment

East Yorkshire Regiment

The East Yorkshire Regiment was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army, first raised in 1685 as Sir William Clifton's Regiment of Foot. It saw service for three centuries, before being amalgamated with the West Yorkshire Regiment , becoming The Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of...

. He was captured by the Germans and spent June 1942 through September 1943 as a prisoner of war

Prisoner of war

A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...

 in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

Throughout the war, Billany concentrated on his writing. The Opera House Murders, a thriller, and The Magic Door, a book for boys, were published in 1940 and 1943, respectively. After the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, Billany fled to the countryside with his manuscripts, working on them for weeks while hiding from the German army. He deposited them with a friendly local who promised to post them to Britain at the conclusion of the war. These manuscripts, The Cage and The Trap, were received by Billany's family in 1946 and eventually published to wide acclaim. In Dockers and Detectives, Ken Worpole lauded The Trap as "the finest novel to come out of the war".

In October 1943, Billany and three friends began to make their way over the Apennines towards the Allied forces. They were last seen in Capistrello

Capistrello

Capistrello is a comune and town in the Province of L'Aquila in the Abruzzo region of Italy....

 on 20 November 1943, and presumably died in the mountains a few days later.

Novels

• The Opera House Murders (1940; published in 1941 in the USA under the title It Takes a Thief)
• The Magic Door (1943)
• The Cage (with David Dowie) (1949)
• The Trap
• The Whispering (1942) published 2008 ISBN 978-0-9557117-1-8