Writing David Niven by James Benn

LUCY BURDETTE: We’re always delighted to welcome our friend and wonderful writer James (Jim) Benn back to the blog with a new book. This time he’s come with an unusual problem…take it away Jim! 

JAMES BENN: There are many challenges when writing a mystery. Authors wrestle with clues, red herrings, and historical details. 

But I have a different problem. 

People. Real historical characters who step onto the stage and threaten to take over the whole show. It’s hard enough stage-managing my own cast of fictional characters, but I often introduce a historical personage when there’s a good match for the narrative in terms of time and place. 

In my Billy Boyle WWII mystery novels, fictional series regulars encounter real characters in every book.

Only two of them have been troublesome. Both were actors.

In my seventh novel, Death’s Door (2012), I needed a way to smuggle Billy Boyle and his partner Piotr “Kaz” Kazimeirz behind enemy lines in Italy. My research brought me to actor Sterling Hayden who served as an OSS agent in Italy during WWII, smuggling arms across the Adriatic to the Yugoslavian Partisans. 

Hayden used a fishing boat to evade German patrols, so he was enlisted to ferry Billy and Kaz to their rendezvous. Sterling Hayden almost stole the show. His true persona was bigger than life and he leapt off the page. He simply refused to exit stage right when first ordered to do so. It was only when I promised to bring him back for the conclusion of the story that he gracefully faded from the narrative. Hayden was a real-life adventurer, his movie career probably the least important thing in his life, as evidenced by the fact that he enlisted under the pseudonym John Hamilton.

It didn’t happen again until I was researching the nineteenth title in the series, The Phantom Patrol (release date 9/3/24). I discovered that David Niven served during the war, quite honorably, and at a time and place that coincided with the plot, set during the winter of 1944 in France.

Niven was another troublemaker. What I had anticipated as a bit part turned into something out of the Best Supporting Actor category.

But before delving into the fascinating exploits of David Niven on and off the battlefield, I must mention the other historical character who shares the investigation with Billy and friends in this book. One Jerome David Salinger. Yes, J.D. Salinger. If you want to know more about his war and how it influenced his writing, check out my CrimeReads online essay (which will be available the week of September 23rd). I only bring him up here as a point of comparison. Salinger was a writer, of course, not an actor, and as such was very well behaved. Hit his marks, never asked for additional lines.

Unlike someone I could mention.

But I shouldn’t have been surprised.

The first hint came early in Niven’s life. As a child he was sent to a strict boarding school where he suffered corporal punishment for playing pranks and was eventually expelled. He later enrolled at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, earning a commission as a second lieutenant. Graduates were asked to list their three top choices for regimental assignments. Being of Scottish descent, he wrote in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the Black Watch. His third choice was a joke, requesting “anything except the Highland Light Infantry” since he detested the tartan trews (trousers) they wore instead of kilts. 

Of course, the army assigned him to the Highland Light Infantry. Although peacetime army life was not to his liking, the experience at Sandhurst and in the military helped him to adopt the officer and a gentleman persona he wore so well for the rest of his life.

One day in 1933 it was all too much. Attending a mandatory and lengthy lecture on machine guns, Niven grew impatient, having dinner plans with a young lady. When the major general delivering the lecture asked if there were any questions, Niven’s rebellious nature took over and he asked, "Could you tell me the time, sir? I have to catch a train".

For this act of insubordinate, Niven was placed under close-arrest and guarded by a fellow officer. A bottle of whisky appeared and after a fair quantity was consumed, the officer agreed to look the other way as Niven tumbled out of a first-floor window and made his escape. He then headed for America, resigning his commission by telegram.

He made his way to Hollywood, found an agent, and was registered with casting as “Anglo-Saxon Type no 2008”. He landed several small parts and eventually came to the attention of Samuel Goldwyn who gave him a contract. Niven became successful and was soon a top actor.

Then came the war. In 1939, British stars in Hollywood were told by the British Embassy to remain in place and continue making films. Niven was the only star to disobey this order. When Samuel Goldwyn was reluctant to release him from his contract, Niven had his brother send a telegram from England, supposedly from the army, ordering Niven’s immediate return. Goldwyn relented. 

Niven was soon back in England and recommissioned as a lieutenant. His duties did little to keep him from fancy dinner parties, including one at which he attracted the attention of Winston Churchill, who cornered him to say, "Young man, you did a fine thing to give up your film career to fight for your country. Mark you, had you not done so – it would have been despicable."

Niven trained with the British Commandos and led a squadron in the misleadingly named GHQ Liaison Regiment, better known as Phantom. Phantom patrols of up to 11 men were outfitted in fast armored cars. They patrolled the front, and sometimes behind enemy lines, monitoring troop movements and battle conditions. Phantom patrols radioed reports directly to army headquarters, giving them instant and up-to-date information by circumventing the regular chain of command.

It is here where I bring in the historical David Niven to work with Billy Boyle. In December 1944, Niven was an intelligence officer under British General Montgomery. The plot of The Phantom Patrol revolves around the murder of a US Army Counter Intelligence Officer (which is where JD Salinger comes in, but I digress) and the theft of recently recovered artwork looted by the Nazis. Major Niven knows the location of a Phantom officer who is an important witness and is called upon to assist Billy in locating him at the front.

Assist, I said. Niven didn’t listen.

Before I knew it, Major Niven offered to take Billy and Kaz to the front lines himself, offering up “My personal M3A1 scout car, outfitted with a powerful receiver and the latest wireless set. Armored sides, four-wheel drive, and a fifty caliber mounted machine gun should we stick our nose where it doesn’t belong. Quite roomy, and there’s an ample supply of brandy aboard. What else could one desire?”

And they were off. There was nothing I could do about it. Writing David Niven seemed to breath life into the character, and perhaps because his voice and mannerisms were so ingrained in my cinematic psyche, he jumped off the page and led the way.

As the scout car neared the front, our lads ran into the opening salvos of what would come to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. Niven wrote about it in his memoirs, and I was able to take some dialog straight from the man himself. 

Once, when asked by American MPs at a crossroads for the password of the day, Niven, who didn’t know the password, retorted “Haven’t the foggiest idea, but I did co-star with Ginger Rogers in Bachelor Mother!” The MPs let him pass.

Later, while under enemy fire, he cheered up his men with “Look, you chaps only have to do this once. But I’ll have to do it all over again in Hollywood with Errol Flynn!” 

Once the tour of the front lines was done and the story had moved on from those scenes, I was finally able to get Major Niven to return to General Montgomery’s headquarters and let Billy get on with solving the mystery on his own. It wasn’t easy.

As breezy and whimsical as Niven’s two autobiographies are, there is an undercurrent of sadness in his life’s story. His upbringing was not easy, and his young and beloved wife Primmie died in a tragic accident in 1946. He was present at the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen death camp in 1945. “I was sick,” he said of the experience. “Physically sick. Even now, I sometimes fancy that I catch a hint of that stench in my nostrils, and my stomach heaves. I feel like it will never leave me.”

At the end of his life (he died in 1983 of Lou Gehrig’s Disease) he was asked how he managed to maintain the cheerfulness that had marked his life. 

“Well, old bean,” Niven said, “life is really so bloody awful that I feel it’s my absolute duty to be chirpy and try to make everybody else happy too.”

Niven understood the cost of war, which is one reason why his writing touched fairly lightly upon his wartime duties. When pressed for details, he left us with this:

I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war.

Here’s to you, Niv.

The Phantom Patrol, Billy Boyle #19 is in bookstores September 24.

"An absorbing and entertaining military history-mystery.”

—Booklist, Starred Review

https://www.jamesrbenn.com/

Compare and Contrast in the latest Billy Boyle WWII Mystery by James R. Benn

JENN McKINLAY: I am absolutely delighted to have the brilliant (and fellow SCSU alum) James R. Benn here today to talk about his latest work in the Billy Boyle World War II mystery series, which comes out TODAY! 

JAMES R. BENN: Compare and contrast . . . 

How many times have you seen those words in a school assignment? 

Comparison analyzes things that are similar, while contrasting discusses things that are different. A compare and contrast essay analyzes two subjects by comparing and contrasting both. It’s been a while since my last college English class, but the phrase kept popping into my mind as I was writing Proud Sorrows, the eighteenth Billy Boyle WWII mystery (Soho Press, September 5, 2023).

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There are several components to the plot of this novel, but two disparate groups stood out in my mind as prime candidates for a good, old-fashioned compare and contrast. 

The first group is the Ritchie Boys. Ever heard of them?

Most people haven’t. 

I’d heard the name but had only a vague understanding of who they were until I delved into their story. As I researched the plot for Proud Sorrows, I thought this could be the book in which to include them. The more I learned, the more certain I became. Here are the basics:

The Ritchie Boys were a secret Military Intelligence Service program created to interrogate German prisoners of war. Over 15,200 servicemen were trained for these duties at Camp Ritchie in Maryland, and that name ultimately became the moniker of the highly classified project. The men who participated in these specialized interrogations were sworn to secrecy and for decades remained silent about their experiences.

A class at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, 1943.

GIs who trained at Camp Ritchie were not actually called “Ritchie Boys” during the Second World War. That name was popularized after German filmmaker Christian Bauer released a documentary called “The Ritchie Boys” in 2004. 

Some writers use “Ritchie Boys” to refer to all the soldiers who were trained in intelligence at Camp Ritchie beginning in 1942. Others use the term only to refer to the 2,200 German or Austrian Jewish refugees who trained at Camp Ritchie after having immigrated to the United States to escape Nazi persecution. And who often arrived in the States as young children without their parents.

As natural-born German speakers, their expertise in the language and understanding of German behavior made them highly valued, and very effective, interrogators. These men often found themselves interrogating rabid Nazis, the very kind of men who had abused them when they lived in Germany. Extracting intelligence information to save Allied lives and shorten the war was their best revenge.

Martin Selling had endured three brutal months in the Dachau concentration camp before finding haven in America. Ultimately, he trained at Camp Ritchie and served in Military Intelligence. Here he is questioning two recently captured SS soldiers.

Ritchie Boys worked at every level, from frontline units to headquarters and POW centers such as the fictional Marston Hall in Proud Sorrows. A postwar intelligence study attributed 60 percent of actionable intelligence in the European theater to the Ritchie Boys using their specialized interrogation techniques.

Their job was not without danger. In the opening days of the Battle of the Bulge, Kurt Jacobs and Murray Zappler, Ritchie Boys attached to the 106th Infantry Division, were captured when their unit was overrun. One of the former German prisoners identified the two men to his commander as “Jews from Berlin.” The commander ordered them to be shot on the spot, stating, "The Jews have no right to live in Germany."

That Nazi officer, Captain Curt Bruns, was himself apprehended and executed after a court-martial in 1945. He was the first war criminal to be executed by the United States Army for war crimes after World War II. 

The more I read, the more I was struck by how dedicated and committed these men were. They joined the Army as soon as war was declared and suffered from both anti-Semitism and bureaucratic confusion in equal parts. They were still German citizens, and it took the Army a while to realize how useful they could be. Once Fort Ritchie was in operation, each class of soldiers marked their graduation by being sworn in as citizens of the United States.

Many Ritchie Boys made it their personal mission to find family members left behind in Germany as the war drew to a close. It was a hopeless search.

There’s a counterpoint to the Ritchie Boys within the pages of Proud Sorrows. Let’s compare and contrast the young men who fled Nazi persecution in the nation of their birth with those Britons who sought to embrace fascism and emulate the Nazi ideology.

British fascists.

Great Britain saw its own fascist movement in the 1930s. Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists was foremost among these, numbering 50,000 at one point. Other groups were smaller, but even more pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic. All were outlawed in 1940 and their leaders interned, including Archibald Leese of the Imperial Fascist League, which plays a role in Proud Sorrows. 

A supporter of the Imperial Fascist League carries their flag at a prewar demonstration.

Although support for these fascist organizations rapidly declined with the start of the war, leading figures such as Mosley and Leese still held to their anti-democratic beliefs. As 1944 rolled around, and with the threat of German invasion a distant memory, most of the British fascist leaders were released from prison. 

One of these leaders was Archibald Ramsay, the head of The Right Club. The Right Club was one of the smaller British fascist parties, organized as a home for those who found the BUF to be not anti-Semitic enough. Upon his release, Archibald Ramsay reintroduced the 1275 Statute of Jewry to the House of Commons. He'd had a seat in the Commons before his detention, which was never revoked. The 1275 statute was the original document put forward by King Edward I which strictly limited the rights of Jews in Great Britain. 

And this is where the compare and contrast assignment comes in.

While the Ritchie Boys did all they could to help their adopted country free people from oppression, the British fascists acted as a mirror image. While they had been born into a free country, they willingly worked to give up that freedom and welcomed the boot heel of oppression.

These extreme right-wing groups favored the Duke of Windsor (the former King Edward VIII), a Nazi sympathizer. Each of the leaders plotted in one way or another to place themselves at the center of a Nazi puppet state, hoping for a German victory early in the war. Meanwhile, the Richie Boys risked their lives to stop Nazi aggression, putting themselves in harm's way.

As I wrote, I was continually struck at how diametrically and morally opposed the two groups were. The Ritchie Boys emerged as victors after much suffering and struggle and have been rightly lauded for their contributions. The British fascists, on the other hand, were imprisoned, their names now synonymous with shame, disgrace, and betrayal.

And as long as we're talking about compare and contrast . . . watch the past to understand the present.

James R. Benn is the author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries. The debut, Billy Boyle, was selected as a Top Five book of the year by Book Sense and was a Dilys Award nominee, A Blind Goddess was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, The Rest Is Silence was a Barry Award nominee, and The Devouring was a Macavity Award nominee. Benn, a former librarian, lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida with his wife, Deborah Mandel.

Too Long? James R. Benn Goes Short

LUCY BURDETTE: We always love having Jim (aka James R.) Benn visiting to talk about his Billy Boyle series, but I promise you'll love this blog about short stories. It may even bring a tear to your eye, so read on...

JIM BENN: I never thought I’d be a short story writer. As an author, I tend to write long. I don’t mind taking my characters in the Billy Boyle series off on a tangential hunt, as long as I return them safely to the story line. In a world where a “standard” novel runs to eighty thousand words, mine routinely exceed one hundred thousand. I’ve always said I like to give my readers a good bang for their buck, but in truth I do blather on.

And it’s nothing new. In 1963, when I was a freshman in high school, Mr. Gillan — fifth-period English class — thought so too. I recently unearthed a folder of short stories I wrote in his memorable course. What was the first comment I saw, a full sixty years later?

TOO LONG






The saving grace was his next comment: “good description” accompanied by a check. I don’t recall if that was the best mark or if I missed a double check, but I certainly learned the lesson that a good description can overcome excessive length. I also learned a good bit, at the age of fourteen, about movie tie-ins. The Great Escape, the classic WWII prison break film, had premiered that summer. I enjoyed it, and I figured Mr. Gillan would, therefore, enjoy my POW escape story.

Dodging the searchlight, he clambered over the wall . . .

GOOD

In red pencil. I was on to something.

Grabbing inspirations as they fell into my lap, my next piece was Story of a Spy. Snappy titles were still, obviously, in my future. I’d seen The Longest Day the year before, and that film about the D-Day invasion had stayed with me. My version concerned an American soldier sent ashore in advance of the invading troops. Take that, Darryl F. Zanuck.






On the morning of June 6, 1944, Normandy was invaded by Allied Forces. But on the night of June 1, five days earlier, it was invaded by Sergeant William Lane.

GOOD OPENER

Yes! Mr. Gillan was impressed! This story was for a full grade, not just a measly check mark. Looking back after six decades, it isn’t a bad read. I should have edited out “five days earlier,” though. Unnecessary. People can count, after all.

I read on, drinking in his positive comments as the story continued. Our hero scores some vital intelligence about German defenses, and he hooks up with the airborne forces who radio his information to headquarters. He’s a hero, and I thought I was too. Then I turned to the back page.

B+. A PROMISING STORY. POSSIBLY TOO EASY FOR THE SERGEANT — BUT INTERESTING.

B+? Not having been the most studious of high school freshmen, I normally would have been happy with anything above a C. But I was disappointed, except for the fact he had written “but interesting” at the end. However, I have benefitted more from that comment than I could ever have imagined.

I never forgot it. Actually, I’d misremembered it, recalling instead that he’d written “Next time make it harder for the sergeant.” Perhaps that was how I internalized the lesson. There would be a next time, and when that came, it would have to be harder for the sergeant. Obstacles. It was a lesson in obstacles.

The fact that I hadn’t grasped the concept was evident in the outline we’d been assigned to create prior to writing the story. Under Complications, I’d written “How not to get caught.” Brilliant. This is the first and only outline I’ve ever written. After that fiasco, I was going seat of the pants all the way.

The constant flow of stories required by Mr. Gillan demanded creative measures. The Twilight Zone television series was widely popular at the time, and one haunting episode features three astronauts who crash-land on a desert-like asteroid. Short of water, the three fall to fighting over scarce resources. One man murders the other two and takes off with their water. Hiking to the top of a hill, he finds they are still on Earth. Outside of Reno, no less.

Well, if it was good enough for Rod Serling, it was good enough for me. Swap out the spaceship for a B-17, and the story wrote itself. In my version, one of the three survivors of the bomber’s crash gives up hope after wandering in the scorching desert and shoots himself. His comrades climb the next ridge and see their own airbase in the distance.

GOOD CONCLUSION

Whew. Mr. Gillan hadn’t seen that episode.

It was a long time until I took up writing fiction again, but I remembered the lessons from fifth-period English. I began my first novel in 1999, but it wasn’t until 2018 that I submitted my first short story. After being intimidated by the short form, I finally had found a way into that style of storytelling. This time around, the ideas are my own, and I wish Mr. Gillan was still here to thank.

A GOOD STORY — PLOT WELL DEVELOPED. YOU HAVE DONE VERY WELL.


As have you, Mr. Gillan. As have you.

Question: Tell us, is there a favorite teacher who influenced your life?
Give them a shout-out here!




James R. Benn is the Dilys, Barry, and Sue Federer Historical
Mystery-award nominated author of the popular Billy Boyle WWII mystery series and three stand-alone works. His novel The Blind Goddess was long listed for the 2015 Dublin IMPAC Literary Award. Benn is a graduate of the University of Connecticut and has an MLS degree from Southern Connecticut State University. He worked in the library and information technology fields for over thirty-five years before leaving to write full-time. Benn and his wife Deborah Mandel live on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

James Benn, Billy Boyle, JFK, and THE WHITE GHOST

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Reds and lovely readers, I'm delighted to introduce James R. Benn — Jim — author of the Billy Boyle series, set during World War II. I loved this series from the debut and eagerly await each new novel. In number ten, THE WHITE GHOST, the series moves to the Pacific Theater and pairs Boston Irish cop Billy Boyle with another Boston Irish boy — maybe you've heard of him? — John F. Kennedy. 

Susan Elia MacNeal:  Jim, your tenth book in the Billy Boyle series leaves the familiar ground of Europe in World War II for the Pacific Theater. What brings Billy to the South Pacific?

James R. Benn: It’s been a reader request for some time. I struggled with how to approach the notion, and finally came up with the idea of pairing two Boston Irish boys: Billy and John F. Kennedy. But when I started looking into how their timelines could intersect, I found that by May 1944, the date of the last book, JFK was already back in the States and discharged from the navy. I thought that idea was a no-go until I happened to notice a gap between the third and fourth books, several unexplained months which accorded nicely with the aftermath of the sinking of PT-109. Here’s how it’s explained in the forward to The White Ghost:

Now, the story of how Billy Boyle came to journey to the South Pacific in 1943 can finally be told.

     Astute readers may have noted Billy’s absence between the invasion of Sicily (Blood Alone), which occurred in July, 1943, and his appearance in Jerusalem in November 1943, before being sent on assignment to Northern Ireland, as recounted in Evil For Evil.

     He was not idle during those months.

     With the governmental veil of secrecy lifted, the events of 1943 immediately following Billy’s Sicilian assignment are chronicled here for the first time.

SEM:    So Billy and Jack are both from Boston, both Irish boys. Are they good friends?

JRB:     They once were; but one thing I learned about the Kennedy family is that friends were often viewed in light of what they could do for the Kennedys. Quite often, it was a one-way street. Jack Kennedy often treated his life-long friend Lem Billings terribly, and their interactions provided the backstory for Billy’s relationship with Jack. Billy’s family is working class Boston Irish; the Kennedys were what was called “lace curtain” Irish, meaning that they were working their way up the social ladder, leaving the shanty Irish behind.

SEM:    There have been many stories about JFK’s father Joseph Kennedy Senior. For instance, that he was a rum-runner during Prohibition, and openly dated movie stars while married to his wife Rosemary. Did you find any of that to be true?

JRB:     Whatever you’ve heard about Joe Senior – the truth is worse than that. The one thing that was never proven was that he made money smuggling alcohol into the US during Prohibition. He did own distilleries in Canada, and I can’t imagine a man like him passing up that sort of money-making opportunity. One thing is for certain; when his Harvard class reunion was held during the 1930s, he was tapped to provide the booze. He had his daughter Rosemary lobotomized, basically in an effort to control her unruly behavior. He did so without consulting his wife or discussing it with the family. This was in 1941, when the operation was still new and untested. Dr. James Watts and Dr. Walter Freeman performed the lobotomy. Watts used an instrument that looked like a butter knife, cutting brain tissue through a frontal incision. As Watts cut, Freeman put questions to Rosemary, asking her to recite the Lord’s Prayer or God Bless America. When she began to become incoherent, they stopped. She spent the rest of her life in a nursing home. Her mother did not visit her for twenty years. Her father never did, and never spoke of her again. That was the kind of environment in which Jack Kennedy grew up.

SEM:    Are there other historical characters in this book? It seems like the Kennedys might well take center stage.

JRB:     There were too many interesting characters in the Solomon Islands for that to happen. One was Merle Farland, a nursing sister who worked at a Methodist mission on Vella Lavella in the Solomons. When the Japanese invaded, most nurses were evacuated. She stayed on, working with Coastwatchers to give advance notice of Japanese raids. She was finally brought out with a B-17 crew she’d rescued, along with a group of Japanese prisoners. When she arrived at Tulagi, across the strait from Guadalcanal, her presence sparked a rumor that Amelia Earhart had been found. Having taken some fictional liberties with her story, the character’s name is Deanna Pendleton, for a young woman who won a character naming at a charity event.

SEM:    I’m curious if the experience of researching and delving into the Kennedy family history has soured you at all on the Kennedy “mystique”?

JRB:     I grew up with JFK on television, and felt the promise of all he had to offer. I think I do understand the character of John F. Kennedy better, and how in the crucible of war he found something deep and meaningful. It was a sobering and widening experience for this man of youthful privilege, and he did take what he learned to heart. I think I am more cynical about the entire family history, and see it as the political machine it always was. But JFK seemed to rise above much of that, and perhaps it was that wartime experience that brought out what could have been greatness.

Oddly enough, I did recently have an encounter with the Kennedy mystique. I was testifying at a Connecticut General Assembly hearing about public library funding, when a State Senator came to the podium to speak. It was Ted Kennedy Junior, who is currently serving in the state senate. He’s tall, good-looking, with that shock of Kennedy hair, and he spoke with passion.

He had me at “My name is Ted Kennedy Junior.”

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Jim, thank you so much for joining us to talk about Billy Boyle, the publication of THE WHITE GHOST, and JFK. Reds and lovely readers, what are your thoughts on history and fiction intersecting in novels? What questions do you have for Jim about the Kennedys and their legacy?

James Benn and "Gateway Mysteries"

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: I've been honored to introduce

many wonderful authors, but must confess — I'm a huge fan of James Benn and his Billy Boyle series from way back. I remember reading the first novel, Billy Boyle: A World War II Mystery, in 2007 — and being absolutely bowled over. A World War II mystery — told in such a fresh and exciting way. (It was what I wanted to do — but with a female protagonist. Jim and I have joked that someday we should write a Billy Boyle/Maggie Hope crossover story.)

Jim is now on his ninth Billy Boyle mystery, and in my humble opinion, they just keep getting better and better. Here's a brief description of his newest, due out in September:

THE REST IS SILENCE (September 2014) is the ninth Billy

Boyle mystery. As preparations for D-Day continue, Billy and Kaz are sent to southwest England to investigate the discovery of a body washed up on a beach in a restricted training area. As the case proceeds, Billy comes face to face with the cost of war for the English people. After five long years with their nation on the front lines, the wounded and maimed in body and soul are returning home. In the midst of all this, an American training exercise goes horribly wrong as German E-boats intercept a convoy headed for the beach at Slapton Sands. Nearly a thousand men are killed in the Channel waters, but Billy and Kaz are tasked to find ten of them; BIGOTs, those who know the secrets of D-Day.

And here, without further ado, is Jim, talking about his "gateway mystery" — the one that sparked his interest in the genre.

JAMES BENN: How did we all end up here?

No, not here in the cosmos, but at a site dedicated to crime fiction. We all had to start somewhere, picking up a mystery novel for the first time, getting hooked, finding a cultural home base, and gathering online to celebrate our communal interests. 

Mysteries weren’t my first genre. In high school I was all about science fiction. Isaac Asimov and the Foundation Trilogy. After college the appeal of sci-fi faded, and I began to read mainly non-fiction.

                  

In 1974 I was working at the University of Denver Library, as a para-professional cataloger in the serials department, taking library science graduate courses at night. For some unknown reason, the university subscribed to a wide variety of British tabloid newspapers. Hardly research materials.

                  

Until the Lord Lucan murder case.

I don’t recall seeing the case reported in the American press, but when the tabloids came in to the library, the front pages were lit up with it. Dark-haired, tall, and good-looking, Lord Lucan was an aristocrat and a gambler. He gave up the banking profession in 1960 when he won 26,000 pounds gambling over the course of two days. That earned him the nickname “Lucky” Lucan and left him with the mistaken impression he could do it again and again.

He couldn't.

Separated from his wife—and with her in possession of the family

home in London—he evidently came up with a scheme to kill her and gain custody of the home and his children. His career as a murderer was about as rewarding as his gambling life. On Thursday, November 7, 1974, Lucan broke into his wife’s house and waited for her in the kitchen, armed with a length of pipe. He’d unscrewed the light bulb to better hide in the darkness when she came down for her evening cuppa.

Unfortunately for Sandra Rivett, the live-in nanny who usually

took Thursday nights off, she stayed home that night. A young girl, about the same height as Lady Lucan, offered to make tea for her that fateful night.

She died in the darkened kitchen, her head smashed in.

In the dark, Lucky Lucan worked feverishly to stuff her body into a mail sack (still thinking it was Lady Lucan), planning to dump it at sea and report his wife missing. He was interrupted by Veronica Lucan, who’d come down

stairs to check on Sandra. He attacked her, wounding her severely, but not before she grabbed his balls and rendered him hors de combat.

Of course, this all didn’t come out at first. The initial reports were short on details and full of the claims Lucan made—in letters written while on the run—about finding a strange man attacking his wife and sending him packing.

He claimed that the circumstantial evidence would be used to discredit him, and promptly disappeared.

There are a number of websites giving facts and touting different theories. For the basics, visit Wikipedia.

There is a pro-Lucan website, dedicated to his innocence here.

And Lady Lucan’s own site, striking a quite different tone here.

The Lucan family of aristocrats had at least one other infamous

Earl. Lord Lucan’s great-great-grandfather, the Third Earl of Lucan, earned his dubious place in history a hundred and twenty years earlier in the Crimea. He was the officer who ordered the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade, which resulted in the deaths of more than 600 men at Balaclava.

A decidedly unlucky Lucan.

Whatever the truth of Lucky Lucan’s guilt or innocence, this case and the British tabloid press whetted my appetite for more. As coincidence would have it, Masterpiece Theatre was showing the first Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, starring Ian Carmichael, at the same time. I watched it.

I was hooked. I devoured all the Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries and went looking for more. For me, it all started with Lucky Lucan.

So, Jungle Reds, how did you come to the world of crime fiction? 

Readers, what was your gateway mystery?