At risk of death, prisoner of war Ray Parkin secretly kept a journal of the months in 1943-44 he spent working on the Thai-Burma Railway. His account, first published as Into the Smother, received international acclaim for its restrained but realistic depiction of POWs living, working and dying in a Japanese camp deep in the Thai jungle. It was hailed by the legendary literary critic Max Harris as 'probably the finest POW writing in English'.