September 1970. Belfast's grim Crumlin Road prison. Once one of Britain's finest intelligence officers, Ben Calvin now sits alone facing his moment of truth. Sentenced to death for murder, he is to be executed at dawn.

But Calvin is determined to die with dignity to frustrate those who want to break him. It is in his last few hours that he traces his journey from boyhood to a condemned man's cell. The result is a sorry tale of tragedy and an ill-fated affair captured in a raw depiction of matters of the heart catastrophically colliding with the Cold War.

Ultimately a love story subtly highlighting the irreversibility of capital punishment, Spring Days in Winter is an evocative account with a rare depth of feeling, a beaten-down man's haunting exploration of loyalty, betrayal and the terrible weight of regret.