The scope and quality of contemporary crime fiction never ceases to amaze me. And the field seems to keep expanding in terms of talent and subject matter.
James R. Benn has been writing one of the best historical mystery series — set during World War II — that follows a young Boston cop named Billy Boyle who becomes a troubleshooting assistant to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. Ike calls on Billy to tackle behind-the-scenes cases that need the smarts and the brawn of a cop rather than a standard-issue soldier.
In the course of the first four books, Benn has done a fine job of juggling the pleasures of a whodunit with the much deeper drama of what it was like for young American men to be exposed to the butchery of war.
Billy has grown with each story and the new book “Evil for Evil” (Soho Press) puts him to an intriguing moral test as he is sent to Northern Ireland to investigate the theft of a cache of American weapons. Some of the locals believe the IRA took the guns as part of a German-sponsored uprising against British rule.
Billy feels torn by the case. As a Boston Irish Catholic, his loyalties lie with those who want total freedom from British rule — his family back home has raised money for the IRA without, perhaps, knowing the full complexity of the split between the Catholics and the Protestants in Northern Ireland. In this age of heightened U.S. sensitivity to terrorism “Evil for Evil” reminds us that Americans were for many years one of the major funding sources for terrorism in Ireland.
Benn gives the reader a you-are-there feeling that brings World War II alive. As Billy has spent more time in Europe and seen more battlefield action, the stories have gained in power.
The author shows us the existential hell of the average soldier’s experience waiting to see if he will survive his next exposure to combat.
Billy meets a soldier who talks about the “geometry” and the “intersecting lines” that produce death on the battlefield: “Right now, this very minute, there’s a bullet in a case of ammo somewhere, maybe in a factory in Germany, maybe stockpiled in Rome. It’s moving, slow or fast, but it’s moving, and so are you…all the while you’re moving, just like that bullet, on a path to an unknown place…And…the only place that matters (is) where the lines intersect. Don’t matter which country, because once they do, once you and that bullet finally meet up, you’re nowhere.”
(On Sunday, I’ll be leading a free discussion with Benn and another modern master of crime fiction, Peter Lovesey, at the Westport Library, 20 Jesup Road, at 2 p.m.)
