About fifteen miles northwest of Dubrovnik is the island of Mljet where part of Dancing with Spies is set. Mljet is claimed to be the ancient island of Melita where St Paul was shipwrecked on his way to Rome to spread the Christian religion to the place which is now its centre. The tradition is […]
The southern Yugoslav republic of Montenegro had claimed for some time that the Dubrovnik area should be a part of its territory despite the fact that the population was more than 80% Croatian. They saw the secession of Croatia from the Yugoslav Federation as the excuse to invade. In this they were supported by Serbia […]
Modern Dubrovnik is a substantial city and port. But a lot of the action in Dancing with Spies takes place in the Old Town which is the World Heritage Site and the main place of interest for tourists. The main entrance to the old part of the city is from the north through the Pile […]
Dubrovnik is now a part of the independent nation of Croatia which is an unusually shaped country. The majority of its land mass consists of productive plains situated in the northern part of the former Yugoslavia and is sandwiched between Hungary and Slovenia to the north and Bosnia-Herzegovina to the south. In the east there […]
My novel Dancing with Spies is set in and around the beautiful city of Dubrovnik (see photo) in 1991. At the start of the novel Dubrovnik is still nominally in Yugoslavia, but it is actually part of the breakaway state of Croatia The country of Yugoslavia had only existed as an entity since 1919 when […]