Novelist James Benn to sign books Tuesday at Savoy in Westerly

September 19, 2016 12:01 am • Last Updated: September 20, 2016 9:43 am

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

Author James R. Benn (Photo submitted)

Novelist James Benn returns with ‘Blue Madonna,’ his new Billy Boyle mystery.

For most of his first 50 years, Hadlyme’s James Benn’s primary connection to books was in a stewardship context. He was a librarian.

In the decade and a half since, though, that connection has shifted somewhat. Benn now supplies books to libraries — not to mention bookstores all over the world. As in, he’s the author of a vastly popular and original series of mystery novels set in World War II and starring Billy Boyle, a U.S. Army detective and former Boston policeman.

Interestingly, while Benn had always dreamed of a career in fiction, he never did anything about it until he and his wife, Debbie, were vacationing in Germany’s Harz Mountains on his 50th birthday. Being such an auspicious occasion, Debbie asked him what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

“I told her I’d like to try to write a book,” Benn says. “I was one of those people who always wanted to write but never did anything about it. I decided it was time to act and move from the passive to active voice.”

The next day, hiking a mountain trail, they found a German military cemetery, and the dates on the tombstones were all from April 1945. But there were also about 20 graves dedicated to “unknown Russians” — each decorated with fresh geraniums. Benn had no idea where the flowers came from, but he was inspired.

“I started writing,” he says, “and I haven’t stopped yet.”

That first manuscript, inspired by the German cemetery, was called “Desperate Ground” and came out in 2004 as a hardcover by a print-on-demand outfit that went out of business soon after. In 2012, retitled “On Desperate Ground,” the novel resurfaced in paperback and E-book editions from Open Road Media. This is good for many reasons, not the least of which is that the book originally introduced a secondary character — one Billy Boyle. You may have read about him.

Last week, the 11th volume in the Boyle series, “Blue Madonna,” came out from Benn’s longtime publisher, Soho, and he’ll discuss and sign copies Tuesday in Westerly’s Savoy Bookshop and Café.

In “Blue Madonna,” Boyle has been court-martialed and sentenced to three months of hard labor, wrongly charged with five counts of black market ops. But before he can begin his sentence, Boyle is given the choice to avoid punishment if he’ll go behind enemy lines to find and rescue an Allied soldier reportedly hiding in a French Resistance safe house.

The assignment has huge ramifications for the impending D-Day invasion and, fortunately for Boyle, longtime comrades and fan-faves Big Mike and Kaz are also on the mission. But when they arrive at the safe house — complete with a Hydra-headed nest of subterranean catacombs originally built by Druids — they discover two downed airmen, an American and a Canadian, have been murdered on the premises. Things get tense at top speed — including a tangential plot involving Nazi plans to steal valuable artwork from across Europe — and readers will be completely seduced by the series’ usual wit, fascinating historical details, and relentless action even as the cumulative toll of war on Boyle and company adds even more depth and complexity to the characters.

Last Thursday by phone, Benn answered five questions about “Blue Madonna” and the process of writing the ‘Boyle’ series.

Q. Nothing can prepare someone for the experience of war, and each individual reacts differently. This is something you deal with poignantly in the series. When you started writing ‘Billy Boyle,’ is this something you thought about in terms of the evolution of the books?

A. After I finished the first book, ‘Billy Boyle,’ I really liked the character, and it occurred to me that I could keep going. But I started the second book the week after 9/11, and that still sticks with me. I couldn’t get going. I’d look at the empty sky, and it was a real turning point. And I realized that it would be real for Billy because it was real for me.

At the outset, my main inspiration for Billy was Paul Fussell, a combat vet, historian and philosopher and all-around cynic. Billy’s sardonic take on the war owes much to Fussell’s ‘Wartime’ and other writings.

By now, though, Billy’s been beaten down by his experiences. He’s a lot darker now and he’s not the same light, wisecracking guy I’d originally envisioned. He’s constantly sobered by all the death around him. Of course, through the magic of fiction, Billy gets into more than just day-to-day battle, and he’s had a lot of overwhelming experiences. It’s a challenge to keep writing him in a way that he doesn’t want to put a gun to his head.

Q. At the start of the series, the World War II backdrop was an extensive, creative blank canvas, so to speak. By “Blue Madonna,” though, Billy’s delved into a lot of the major incidents and encountered some major players in such settings as Algeria, Sicily, France, Northern Ireland, the Pacific Theater, Britain and Rome. Has it become difficult to come up with new ideas?

A. Actually, that’s the easiest part. But, starting with the last five or six books, a lot has happened in a short time. I deliberately had to slow the pace down so I wouldn’t run out of time. What I’ve found is that, the more you do research, the more rabbit holes I find to go down. The more you dig into a topic, the more tributaries you find and can follow.

For example, I was reading an obscure book about the French Resistance and came across one sentence about a Jewish network that smuggled Jewish children into Switzerland. And the Swiss didn’t want them. Those famous passports with the big red J on them came from the Swiss so they could turn away the Jews at the border. That’s at the heart of the next Billy Boyle.

Q. The title “Blue Madonna” alludes to a painting. Talk a bit about the plot element involving the Nazis’ quest to steal artwork.

A. When France was invaded, many art collectors, including the Rothschild family, sent their artwork to be hidden in the country — often in chateaus or the estates of friends. Most were rooted out by Nazi art thieves charged with systematically looting paintings for Hitler’s and Goering’s collections. But some of the art survived, and this part of the story surfaces in the novel.

Q. Is “The Blue Madonna” real and was it actually part of the World War II art thefts?

A. It’s real, but it wasn’t in Europe. I wanted to focus on a particular piece of artwork in the book, though, and while Debbie and I were touring the Ringling Art Museum in Florida, we decided to search for a painting to represent those hidden from the Germans. As soon as we walked into a gallery and saw ‘The Blue Madonna’ by (17th-century Florentine painter) Carlo Dolci, we knew it was the one. It has a luminous, other-worldly light, and I could see it becoming an object of fascination for those trying to save it as well as the villains trying to steal it.

Q. You’ve jokingly expressed that you’re tired of waiting on the New York Times Book Review to hit you up for a profile in their “By the Book” column. We’re here to help. They always ask the ol’ “Which three living or dead writers would you invite to a dinner party” question. We’ll go the Times one better. What FOUR authors would you have over?

A. Willam Shakespeare, Arthur Conan Doyle, Lee Child and Josephine Tey, whose ‘Daughter of Time’ I’ve read several times. But I’d give Doyle and Child and Tey the wrong address so I could have The Bard all to myself. And I’m sure the others would enjoy each other’s company.