James R. Benn

James R. Benn is the author of the Billy Boyle World War II series, historical mysteries set within the Allied High Command during the Second World War. The series began with Billy Boyle, which takes place in England and Norway in 1942. Proud Sorrows is the eighteenth installment of the series.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

It's a signpost. This is a story full of sorrows. Some come from the after-effects of the First World War, others from brutal family conflicts, racial and religious hatred, and the physical and psychic wounds of warfare. I found this quote from Shakespeare, and it struck me as perfect for the story I wanted to tell:

"I will instruct my sorrows to be proud,
For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop."

There's a sense of resilience in those lines, as well as an admission of a heavy burden. Both are explored as we encounter the characters in this story.

What's in a name?

Oh, I had so much fun naming the characters in this book! While my protagonist, Billy Boyle, was named eighteen books ago, I enjoy coming up with new folks for him to meet. I decided to go old school and search out slightly more archaic names to populate the small village of Slewford where Billy finds himself. Graham Cheatwood, Charlotte Mothersole, Alfred Bunch, Dr. Bodkin, to name a few. Sir Richard Seaton's housekeeper is Mrs. Rutledge, a homage to one of my favorite mystery series, the Inspector Ian Rutledge novels by Charles Todd. I do give a lot of thought to names, but I work at not telegraphing anything about guilt or innocence. Back in my second novel, the killer was a Frenchman named Villard - who couldn't see that coming a mile away?

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

He'd find a delightful surprise. When I was nineteen and a college sophomore entranced by all I was discovering in my English classes, I visited Constitution Plaza in Hartford, Connecticut. It's a rooftop plaza sitting above parking garages, and it's filled with gardens and shops. It provides a view down into the lower floors of the surrounding office buildings. It was the holiday season, with festive lights everywhere. As I looked into the office windows across from me, I saw a solitary cleaning woman at work. The juxtaposition of her solitary labors and the crowds of shoppers struck me, and then and there I vowed one day to write a story about her. I christened her Agnes Day (Agnus Dei, lamb of God). Well, she's not a cleaning woman, but I finally fulfilled that vow in Proud Sorrows; Agnes Day is a nurse who has returned home to Slewford after working through the worst of the Blitz in London, bringing her own set of solitary sorrows with her.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I tend to do incremental editing, so I can't say where most changes occur. As soon as I finish a chapter, I read it aloud to my wife and we work out what needs to be improved. But overall, I find beginnings easy. The middle is tough because I still worry that I won't have enough narrative to carry the story into a full-length novel. But around the two-thirds mark, I stress out about how I'm going to fit everything that needs to be said into that last third! It never changes.

Overall, I write with a theme and ending in mind. Often I don't know who the killer is when I begin. It's only when I've populated the story with distinct characters that the murderer becomes apparent to me. I try to focus on the why-dunnit rather than the who-dunnit, but that does cause me to go back to the beginning to rework things a bit once I've nailed the bad guy or gal.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

There's a part of me in Billy Boyle, for sure. His anti-authoritarianism comes pretty easily. He's often a sardonic observer, which isn't much of a stretch. But I'm not as quick-witted as he is. The bon mots that roll off this tongue (especially at the end of a chapter) take me a long time to think up. I wish I was as urbane and sophisticated as Baron Kazimierz and as strong as Big Mike, but that is only true in my mind.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Because these books call for action scenes, I pay attention to cinema and how fight scenes are choreographed.

Arkia Kurosawa's Ran is a touchstone for me. Midway through the movie, there's a huge battle scene in which Kurosawa drops out all dialog. The entire battle is filmed without diegetic sound (sound where the source is visible on screen). Only the tremendous musical score is heard, which allows the viewer to focus on the devastation at hand. To me, it has a way of slowing down the action, and reminds me that what I write has to work visually and clearly in the mind of the reader.

Sadly, the news has its own peculiar effect. My books are set eight decades ago during World War II, the global struggle against fascism. Whenever I see swastika banners in the streets of America, it brings an immediacy to my work. Racism and anti-Semitism, those keystones of fascism, are still with us, to a degree that would astonish Billy Boyle. An example of the news leaking into the narrative is this brief scene, in which Billy and Kaz discover an arms cache hidden by British fascists:

“This could have done a lot of damage,” Kaz said.

“It already has,” I said as I threw the Nazi flag to the floor. “It’s gotten people who live in a democracy to embrace and fight for fascism.”

“People who don’t know the value of what they have,” Kaz said.

Too true, Kaz, too true.

Learn more about the Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Series at James R. Benn's website.

The Page 99 Test: The First Wave.

The Page 69 Test: Evil for Evil.

The Page 69 Test: Rag and Bone.

My Book, The Movie: Death's Door.

The Page 69 Test: The White Ghost.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Madonna.

--Marshal Zeringue