Essex author James Benn celebrates new novel with signing event Tuesday

Sep. 3—James Benn, the Essex-based author of 16 books in the celebrated Billy Boyle mystery series, has a small issue with time.

It has nothing to do with deadlines. The prolific writer reliably and punctually turns in each new manuscript as per the annual contract. And Benn himself is in good health.

No, the problem is that the books, featuring Boyle as a detective solving crimes for the U.S. Army, are (mostly) set in Europe during World War II. And though Benn liked the idea of writing a series back when the initial title, "Billy Boyle," was published in 2006, he didn't think far enough ahead to wonder what might happen, chronologically speaking, if "Boyle ran out of war."

"I'm always looking for any idea for what happens next," laughs Benn, who's on a Zoom interview earlier this week. "What's left that I can realistically explore?"

The newest Boyle adventure is "Road of Bones," and it takes place in early fall, 1944. Historians and math experts can figure out that leaves less than a year before Germany surrenders — and then what's a Boyle to do?

Well, first, Benn will celebrate the publication of "Road of Bones" with an in-store discussion, Q&A and signing Tuesday in Mystic's Bank Square Books. This journalist will moderate.

Beyond that, Benn's not too worried. He writes and thinks two books ahead, so for now readers can breathe a sigh of relief. Next year's title, "Shadows," is already done and he's well along in the manuscript after that. He also wrote several short stories — one of which was purchased by the elite Alfred Hitchcok Mystery Magazine.

Despite the productivity, though, Benn says he's always grateful for any historical angles or little-known facts of the conflict that might provide future settings for Boyle's sleuthing expertise.

Hey, buddy, can you spare an idea?

With "Road of Bones," the impetus came from a colleague.

"The notion of setting the book in Russia came from a great crime writer, Reed Farrell Coleman," Benn says. "We were at a book conference in Florida, and he said, 'You really should send Billy to Russia.' And I said, 'No, that's a whole different language. How are we going to manage that? It's a dumb idea.'" He laughs. "After the conference, as I thought about it, I thought maybe it wasn't so dumb after all. But I wasn't sure how to pull it off."

Then Benn remembered Operation Frantic — a shuttle bombing mission to be conducted by U.S. aircraft flying out of bases in Great Britain, Italy and three Soviet airfields in Ukraine.

"I started researching those bases and realized there was a story there," Benn says, and he was off.

In "Road of Bones," Boyle is sent to one of the three Soviet locations, Poltava, after two intelligence officers — one American, one Russian — are found shot execution style in a locked storage facility. Tensions were already high between the Soviets and Americans, and the pressure to solve the crime escalates way beyond just establishing guilt.

Boyle is partnered with a Soviet officer, Sidarov, with whom he's had a harrowing experience of betrayal in the past. The pair must establish an uneasy truce and nuance a situation where, depending on what happens, each side might demand a different resolution. Boyle is at different points in the story joined by his best friends, Polish compatriot and special investigator Lieutenant "Kaz" Kazimierz, and American staff sergeant Big Mike Mieczikowksi. But despite their help, the situation is fractious and dangerous.

Digging through history

Benn's narrative blueprint was augmented when research brought to light two excellent elements he was able to incorporate seamlessly into the plot. One is the titular Road of Bones, which is a grisly, real-life bit of infrastructure that symbolized the perpetual auras of despair and fear of Soviet life under Joseph Stalin.

In the 1930s, Benn explains, Stalin decided he needed a road inland from the Pacific Ocean, just south of Siberia but still an area of frozen tundra and desolate wilderness. Stalin used political prisoners from labor camps to build the road with only the most basic tools and in brutal conditions. Historical estimates suggest between a quarter-million and million prisoners died during the construction of the road and, given the permafrost condition of the ground, to bury them on-site as they fell was the only option.

Benn says, "The prisoners started calling it the Road of Bones because they knew it was likely they'd end up there. As soon as I saw that it was — BANG! — that's gotta be the title because it says so much about the environment these people found themselves in. A state that will do that to you is capable of anything. And the plot revolves around how various characters respond to that system."

Another compelling addition to the story is the presence of the Night Witches, a group of all-female Russian aviators who flew bombing missions against the Germans.

"The Russians allowed women to do a lot of things in the 1930s, and there were a lot of female flying clubs and a lot of them were pilots," Benn says. "One of these women, when the war broke out, somehow got in touch with Stalin and personally asked him if she could recruit a regiment of women pilots. And he gave his permission! There was a bomber group, a fighter plane group, and a group flying these night missions in biplanes — old crop dusters. And the whole regiment was female. The mechanics, the cooks, the officers ... That, I don't think, has ever happened before."

Benn adds that, after the war, when a massive celebration took place in Moscow with a parade featuring all the units of the Soviet military, the Night Witches were not invited. "It felt good to give them a bit of the honor they're due," he says.

Grim mood

One pervasive element in "Road of Bones" is the suffocating sense of life under the Soviet regime. Benn does a grimly effective job of conveying the paranoia, desperation and terror citizens lived with. The omniscience and omniscient power of the KGBD is presented by the author in a succession of small details within the novel.

Benn says, "For example, I learned that the prisoners in these political camps were not allowed to address guards or captors as 'comrade' because that's an honorable title. In the book, a former KGBD officer has been released from prison camp to work with Billy and told by his bosses he has to find an American guilty."

As Benn deftly writes the scene, the ex-agent slips and addresses an officer as "comrade," and the depiction of abject fear felt by the prisoner at his mistake is chilling. A small detail, but it carves an immense sense of gloom and palpable danger that simmers throughout the novel.

"That's the tricky part," Benn says. "That's an interesting detail and reveals a lot to the reader, but I can't resort to having Kaz say, 'By the way, Billy, did you know that if someone slips and says "comrade ..."' That doesn't have a gut-wrenching impact on the reader, so you have to let the action and characters reveal the emotion and implications."

With 16 Boyle books behind him, Benn says he can't help but to have learned how the writing process works best for his own style and personality.

"Over the last few books," he says, "the thing I've found difficult and perhaps not that interesting is the Whodunnit aspect, the actual mechanics of a murder mystery. That's hard work. I had the idea of the two dead agents in the locked room, but I didn't know who did it. I start writing because I prefer to let my subconscious work that out. Let the characters figure it out.

"I set myself a challenge. I can populate the story with characters and a situation and THEN I can figure out who did it and why. Often, I have to go back and tweak a scene and do a bit of backfilling to make it all fit. To me, that's easier than figuring it all out ahead of time. And as I've said a few times, if this book does well, it's all due to my genius." He laughs. "If not, it's obvious Reed Farrell Coleman came up with a bum idea."