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/

James Benn discusses The Wild Purge

INGRID THOFT

One of the wonderful things about Jungle Reds is the knowledge our guests impart to us about experiences, people, and places we might otherwise miss.  James R. Benn joins us today to discuss his latest novel, "Solemn Graves," the 13th novel in his Billy Boyle WWII mystery series, which will be published on September 4th.  I am woefully ignorant when it comes to WWII and D-Day, so thank you, James, for educating me about the days immediately following D-Day and the historical context in which "Solemn Graves" is set.

The Wild Purge
During the period between D-Day (June 6, 1944) and the Liberation of Paris (August 25, 1944) those areas in France no longer under German control were—ironically—quite lawless. General de Gaulle refused to permit the installation of the usual Allied Military Government, on the basis that France was an ally, not a nation to be occupied. But he didn’t have the clout to establish his own government, not until after Paris was freed.

But that’s a story for another day.
This is the story of The Wild Purge, the épuration sauvage, carried out immediately following the collapse of the German occupation and before de Gaulle’s provisional government was in place. The French Resistance had been armed from London and by weapons taken from the Germans. The ranks of the Resistance fighters, known as the Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur, or FFI (called fifis by Americans who invariably came up with their own ways to pronounce French names) grew tremendously in each town and region as the allies drew closer. Many French men and women had been part of the movement for years. Some joined in June or July 1944 at the very last minute.

Scores of young men had fled to the hills to escape the forced roundup for slave labor in Germany. They became known famously as the Maquis, after the scrub brush common in the countryside. But others joined only when it was certain they would emerge on the winning side. Some had their own collaborationist past and hoped that a furious patriotism would erase any memory of previous misdeeds.

A frenzy of killing took place in those weeks. Historians estimate these extrajudicial executions totaled over 10,500 deaths. Many of these were French fascists and collaborators who had hunted and tortured their own. No one can be sure that in the enthusiasm of Liberation, those scores had anything to do with the war, or that the death penalty was warranted. No one with any legal authority was present to stop the killings, and in some cases, old scores certainly were settled.

The wild purge included not only killings, but a wave of violence against women. It is estimated that over 20,000 women had their heads shaved as punishment for having relations with the Germans. Other abuse, including tar and feathers, was sometimes applied, along with beating, stoning, and public humiliation. Some of these women were prostitutes, and others had willing affairs with Germans. These were the women accused of collaboration "horizontale." Prostitutes were doing nothing that thousands of Frenchmen had not done in shops and cafes everywhere; take money for services rendered from German soldiers.

Of course, there were women who willingly obliged the Germans with their company. Coco Chanel, the famous French designer, lived through the war at the Ritz hotel in the company of her German lovers, while scheming to take over a perfume company owned by Jews. Her hair was never touched.

Some women were the targets of personal revenge, and it took only a whiff of suspicion for the application of the coiffure ’44 to be applied. This happened to a funeral wreath maker in the city of Toulouse. As she was working next to an open window, a German soldier strolled up and began talking to her. Their entire conversation took place at the window, and the soldier moved on. After Liberation, she was denounced for this simple exchange. A mob came for her, stripping off her clothing and shearing her hair as her daughter watched.

Looking at these pictures, I see a savagery in the air that makes me wonder if the humiliation felt by men defeated in 1940, long repressed during the Occupation, found an outlet in the treatment of these women. The sneering smiles and superior faces of the men especially are terrifying. I do wonder how many of them had taken action against the Germans.

Women who were shaved became known as "the tondues" – the shorn

Women played a huge role in the French Resistance from the beginning. One reason was that young French men were often rounded up on sight for slave labor work and sent to Germany. It was easier for women to move about and not attract attention. I wonder how much of the rage released onto Frenchwomen was a result of the emasculation of French men, forced into a powerless state by the German occupiers for four long years.Yes, French women were also traitors and informers, as were French men. Perhaps the woman in the image below is one. Was her crime one of passion, survival, avarice, or simple business? We don’t know. But we know those faces. The faces of a mob.

Although I had seen these pictures before, it was only after reading "Les Parisiennes" by Anne Sebba that I began to understand the ugly motivations behind the treatment of women during the épuration sauvage. This is a terrific book, well-written, and gives us a new way to look at this historical period. Highly recommended.

Once de Gaulle’s government was installed following the Liberation of Paris, a “legal purge,” or épuration légale, replaced the wild purge. A series of trials were held from 1944 to 1949, meting out justice to collaborators and officials of the Vichy regime. Nearly seven thousand people were sentenced to death, but in the end, less than eight hundred sentences were carried out.

The myth of wide-spread participation in the Resistance quickly took hold, and the collaboration with the Germans and the Vichy regime became buried in the collective unconscious. The men of the Resistance were glorified and the women, for the most part, forgotten. After the war, Charles de Gaulle awarded 1,038 Resistance members with the coveted medal “Compagnons de la Libération”.

Only six went to women.

Do you have questions for James?  He'll be joining us today so fire away!

Solemn Graves
US Army detective Billy Boyle is called to investigate a mysterious murder in a Normandy farmhouse that threatens Allied operations.

July, 1944, a full month after D-Day. Billy, Kaz, and Big Mike are assigned to investigate a murder close to the front lines in Normandy. An American officer has been found dead in a manor house serving as an advance headquarters outside the town of Trévières. Major Jerome was far from his own unit, arrived unexpectedly, and was murdered in the dark of night.

The investigation is shrouded in secrecy, due to the highly confidential nature of the American unit headquartered nearby in the Norman hedgerow country: the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, aka, the Ghost Army. This vague name covers
a thousand-man unit with a unique mission within the US Army: to impersonate other US Army units by creating deceptions using radio traffic, dummy inflatable vehicles, and sound effects, causing the enemy to think they are facing large formations. Not even the units adjacent to their positions know what they are doing. But there are German spies and informants everywhere, and Billy must tread carefully, unmasking the murder while safeguarding the secret of the Ghost Army—a secret which, if discovered, could turn the tide of war decisively against the Allies.

James R. Benn
I divide my time between the Gulf Coast of Florida and Connecticut, with my wife Deborah Mandel, a psychotherapist who offers many insights into the motivations of my characters, a good critical read, and much else. We have two sons, Jeff and Ben, and seven grandchildren (Camille, Claudia, Emma, Luke, Nathaniel, Noah, Oliver).

I'm a graduate of the University of Connecticut and received my MLS degree from Southern Connecticut State University. I am a member of the Mystery Writers of America, and the Author's Guild. I've worked in the library and information technology fields for over thirty-five years and quit the day job routine in 2011 to write full-time.

I've learned two valuable lessons since I started writing which have helped me greatly. The first is a quote from Oscar Wilde, who said "The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of one's pants to a chair." The second is from novelist Rachel Basch, who told me "the story has to move down, as well as forward." Both sound simple. Neither is.

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?