A WW II-flavored homecoming: Author James Benn signs new book Thursday

September 13, 2024 4:00 pm • Last Updated: September 13, 2024 10:44 pm

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

James Benn (submitted)

All things considered not equal, author James Benn and his wife Deborah Mandel, who were longtime residents of Essex, decided a few years back to retire to Florida. They’re by no means the first to do so; in fact, there is a lot of empirical evidence to suggest there’s a law requiring Nutmeggers to head south at a certain point.

But the couple’s defection does reduce the state’s list of prominent authors by one. Benn is the award-winning novelist behind the popular and critically acclaimed Billy Boyle World War II Mysteries. The eponymous hero is a former Boston detective whose police technique is such that he becomes a staff investigator for a distant relative — a rising military genius named Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The latest and 19th in the series is “The Phantom Patrol,” which hit bookstores last week, and Benn returns to Connecticut Thursday for a reading/signing at the Mystic & Noank Library.

It’s set in winter, 1944, and the sense within Allied forces is that Germany is weakening significantly. With that cautious optimism, Boyle and his best friends and fellow investigators, “Kaz” Kazimierz and Big Mike, are in Paris on the trail of a gang of Nazi-affiliated art thieves. The spooky, spellbinding first chapter in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery leaves a criminal dead and leads to the discovery of a rare Albrecht Dürer engraving.

It’s a captivating way to kick into the mystery — but that Billy, Kaz and Big Mike will unravel threads that lead to them fighting in the historic and violent Battle of the Bulge is a clever bit of authorial sorcery. This predicament seems cruel given that all three men have, over the course of a series, literally traveled the depth and breadth of the war — from Africa and the UK to Europe and even the Pacific Theater. By now, each has suffered a series of physical and emotional wounds.

Already out on tour behind “The Phantom Patrol,” Benn answered questions about the book and series by email.

Q: You've written some incredibly tense battle scenes from across the scope of the war. Keeping in mind the visual medium and films like “Platoon” and “Saving Private Ryan,” how do you learn to describe horrible set pieces — as with, in the new book, the Battle of the Bulge? Is this something done quickly, with the exhilaration of the task fueling you? Or do you have to take it really slowly?

A: It is a long, slow process when you take into account research. Not just the big picture stuff, but accounts of witnesses at every level. I need to fill my cup with far more knowledge than I need so when it comes time to write the scene, the words overflow and burst out from my mind, through my fingers banging away at the keyboard, and create what to me is a visual image painted on the white screen.

Q: I've spoken to authors who describe a similar experience that develops over the course of their careers. They know there's a big scene coming up, and while they don't dread it, they feel some anxiety as the day approaches when they have to sit down and write it. Maybe a favorite character is in danger or maybe a popular character in that particular book has to be killed off. I'm generalizing, but does this resonate?

A: With each manuscript, I have in mind what I think of as waypoints. They mark the path of the plot and stand for thematic integrity, so I need to focus on steering the story toward the next waypoint while also keeping the reader turning the pages with interesting stuff while we’re on that path. It’s not a big scene that intimidates me, it’s staying the course as we move through the story. Maybe that’s the same thing?

Q: I know you visit a lot of the countries and sites where some of your books or sections thereof take place. Did you in fact visit Pere Lachaise Cemetery and seek out Marcel Proust or Balzac or Richard Wright? And be honest: you had to go see Jim Morrison, right?

A: We’ve been to Paris and I still wonder how we did not make it to the Pere Lachaise. Probably why I decided to set the opening scene there.

Q: And speaking of famous people, I suspect you're getting well known for your ability to insert historical figures into the narratives. In the new book, we meet JD Salinger and David Niven! Is this something that's becoming a sort of signature characteristic of your books — sorta like Hitchcock making cameos in his own movies?

A: Yeah, me and Hitch! I’ve done this because the stories of well-known people are often so fascinating that I couldn’t bear to leave them out. With Salinger and Niven, their experiences intersected perfectly with this storyline set in Paris after the Occupation and the course of the war leading up to the totally unexpected Ardennes Offensive. They were both where Billy and company find them, and they act in accord with the duties they had at the time.

With the interstices of their experiences I find room for them in this fictional world in a way I hope is true to their character. And I often learn a lot. In this case it was an eye-opener to grasp how deeply the war affected Salinger’s work. And how perhaps it explains his desire for seclusion.

Q: We’ve spoken before about the ongoing and cumulative melancholy experienced in real-time fashion by Kaz and Billy and Big Mike. Interestingly, at various points in “The Phantom Patrol,” there seems to be a bit more optimism from the boys – that they seem to sense the tide is turning and the war might be ending. Is that accurate?

A: Yes. At this point in the war soldiers are talking about “Home Alive in ‘45”. The defeat of Nazi Germany seems inevitable and the only question for combatants is how to avoid being killed with the end in sight. It’s a two-edged sword, of course, since hesitancy in combat can mean death. They are also beginning to think about their post-war lives, which raises serious questions. Can Kaz ever go home to Poland? What will happen to Billy and Diana’s relationship? Interesting grist for the writer’s mill.

Q: Either way, what about you? Do YOU want the war to end? You’ve developed three characters who, despite existing only in the written word on pages, you might well think of as among your best friends. Is there always one more literary battle ahead — or at least as long as you’re able?

A: Very good question, and one I’ve thought a lot about. The book for 2025 is done and I’m starting on the next. I do have a plan to move through the end of the war in Europe and later in the Pacific. But essentially, all I can do is think about the next book and write the best and truest story I can. Where that process will take me and my make-believe friends, who knows?

Q: What’s next year’s book about?

A: Well, when I stumbled across the fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s daughter, Jean, was an RAF intelligence officer during the war, I knew the game would be soon be afoot for Billy Boyle.