A JAMES BENN FIELD MANUAL

1 Benn graduated from UConn and has a masters in library science from Southern Connecticut State University. His wife, Deborah Mandel, is a psychotherapist. They have two sons and seven grandchildren. 2 Before retiring to write full-time in 2011, Benn worked at the Connecticut State Library and with the U.S. Nation Commission on Libraries and Information Science. He’s also published two non-Billy Boyle novels, “On Desperate Ground” and “Souvenir.” 3 You can’t take the library out of the librarian. Benn remains fascinated by them and says the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale is the most impressive he’s seen: “It’s a granite building, but the collection is housed in a glass-enclosed tower inside. In case of fire, there’s a system to suck the oxygen out of the tower to protect the rare books. Slow humans be damned.” 4 The five best war novels Benn’s ever read: “Cold Mountain” by Charles Frazier; “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien; “Matterhorn” by Karl Marlantes; “The Eagle Has Landed” by Jack Higgins; and “Lastly and most importantly, ‘Johnny Got His Gun’ by Dalton Trumbo, which taught me the power of the interior voice.” 5 If he could meet any historical figure from World War II — aside from the main players — Benn says, “Perhaps because I’m reading so much about it right now, I’d like to talk with any of the survivors of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where the Nazis sent women prisoners exclusively. Many of the female spies sent by the British who were captured ended up there, as well as members of the French Resistance. Their stories of endurance are formidable and daunting.” 6 Traveling extensively in Europe as research for the Boyle novels, Benn says he was most moved by Berlin. “The history is so thick you can slice it with a knife,” he says. “Walking in the city and crossing the white line that marks where the Wall once stood and visiting the German Resistance Memorial and the Topography of Terror Museum made so much of what I write about much more immediate.” 5 If Boyle could team up with any other fictional detective, Benn says, “In my dreams, it would be Bernie Gunther, the sardonic Berlin detective created by the late Philip Kerr. Bernie would definitely outsmart Billy, but it’s a fun fantasy.”