{"id":6674,"date":"2025-09-16T07:16:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T14:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6674"},"modified":"2025-09-16T07:16:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T14:16:27","slug":"james-r-benn-a-bitter-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/james-r-benn-a-bitter-wind\/","title":{"rendered":"James R. Benn: A Bitter Wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Boyle #20<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This series is still enjoyable twenty books in, and while Benn\u2019s fictional WWII may have now lasted longer than the real one, the latest book demonstrates that there are still many unexamined aspects to be explored, among them the dramatization what a complex and far reaching conflict it was, and how many different types of battlefields there were.\u00a0 The story begins with the then nascent tactic of radio jamming, where radio waves were used to jam German signals, diverting or stopping attacks.<\/p>\n

But things really <\/em>begin with our hero Billy, who as usual is hoping for a much needed rest (it\u2019s Christmas for heaven\u2019s sake) as well as a short visit with sweetheart Diana, who is doing classified work at RAF Hawkinage.\u00a0 Billy can\u2019t get there until Christmas day, and while on a holiday walk to the famed White Cliffs of Dover, he and Diana (of course) discover a body, which turns out (also of course) to be a murder victim.<\/p>\n

In a comment worthy of Jessica Fletcher, Billy declares he\u2019ll be heading back to his base after giving a statement to the police.\u00a0 That is of course, as it always is with Jessica, complete nonsense.\u00a0 The local constabulary, consisting of an arrogant DS and a more sensible constable, do not inspire confidence, and when Diana discerns some intriguing things about the corpse, she decides to take matters into her own hands. Before Billy knows what\u2019s happened, he\u2019s pulled in, seconded to the RAF for the duration of the murder investigation.<\/p>\n

Billy, as readers of this series know, is the nephew of Dwight Eisenhower, or as he thinks of him, Uncle Ike.\u00a0 He\u2019d been with the Boston PD when war broke out, and a job behind the lines with Uncle Ike had seemed like a prudent idea to his older brothers who served in WWI.\u00a0 As Billy puts it: \u201cUncle Ike thought it was swell to have his own personal detective to tackle low crimes in high places.\u201d\u00a0 Through his detective work, Billy has seen a great deal of the war, including, in the last book (The Phantom Patrol<\/em>), the Battle of the Bulge.<\/p>\n

With the benefit of hindsight we may know the war is headed to a conclusion, on the ground in December of 1944 it didn\u2019t feel all that inevitable.\u00a0 Benn has sprinkled real people through all of his books \u2013 including Eisenhower, of course \u2013 and they are never too front and center, but they provide richness and authenticity to the stories. Diana\u2019s unit, for instance,\u00a0 is hard at work under the command of Jean Conan-Doyle, the fifth daughter of Arthur Conan-Doyle. (She was apparently called \u201cWatson\u201d or \u201csleuthie\u201d by some of the guys but the comments died off when she showed her mettle).<\/p>\n

While the plot is fairly complicated, the main thrust is simple -\u2013 there are two murders, both seemingly tied to missing, and very secret, radio equipment.\u00a0 Only one man knows who the culprit might be, but, unfortunately, he was taken prisoner in Germany, and although he eventually escaped, his whereabouts remain unknown. Billy\u2019s friend Kaz is on the ground at Hawkinge, and Billy gets him to enlist the help of his associate Big Mike to venture into the wilds of Yugoslavia to bring the asset back alive.\u00a0 The book begins with what was then cutting edge technology, and ends up with Billy and Mike on horseback in a primitive forest.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a beautifully told adventure from the pen of a master. Benn is an author who, while he writes about war \u2013 and he writes very technically about weapons, airplanes, and battles \u2013 also has a high regard for women and always includes them in the cast of his stories.\u00a0 As mentioned, Jean Conan-Doyle is in this book, but regular character and Billy\u2019s girlfriend, Diana, is a smart and strong female too, as is Kaz\u2019s sister, who has recently returned from the concentration camp at Ravensbruck.\u00a0 Although Kaz is very solicitous in his care for her, she emerges as a pretty strong sister herself.\u00a0 Also in this book there\u2019s the fabulous Sanja, a Yugoslav partisan who leads Billy and Kaz in their search.<\/p>\n

Benn tells a riveting story, but also packs the book with history, and, as always with his novels, it\u2019s worth your while to stick around for the coda of historical notes. In them there\u2019s a\u00a0 gem about George McGovern, who may be more familiar to those of us of a certain age, but readers of any age will find the story Benn tells about him well worth learning. These are wonderful novels about an increasingly distant but still relevant time that the author brings to vivid life on the page.\u00a0 —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Boyle #20 This series is still enjoyable twenty books in, and while Benn\u2019s fictional WWII may have now lasted longer than the real one, the latest book demonstrates that there are still many unexamined aspects to be explored, among them the dramatization what a complex and far reaching conflict it was, and how many … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2275,402,10,191,2276,1276,664,149,2277],"class_list":["post-6674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-a-bitter-wind","tag-billy-boyle","tag-historical","tag-james-r-benn","tag-radios","tag-robin-agnew","tag-soho-crime","tag-wwii","tag-yugoslav-forest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6676,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6674\/revisions\/6676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}