About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

THE FIRST WAVE
by James R. Benn
Soho , October 2008
284 pages
7.99 GBP
ISBN: 1569475172


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Another 2nd World War setting - it is certainly the fashion of the moment! However this is not to suggest any similarity of style or type. What we have here is the first-person noir style transplanted to a war setting. Billy Boyle is an ex-cop, Boston American-Irish, who, when he is drafted into the army, plans on spending the war in Washington as his family are very opposed to his joining the 'Brit's war' for political reasons. His mother's cousin just happens to be Ike Eisenhower, who she believes holds a staff job in the Pentagon; so Boyle joins Ike's staff, who of course was in fact in the process of being appointed head of US Forces in Europe. Ike takes Boyle along as his 'special investigator' to deal with politically sensitive cases and the like. In the first book in the series (BILLY BOYLE) Boyle has met and fallen in love British SOE agent Diana Seaton.

In THE FIRST WAVE Boyle joins his immediate C.O. Major Harding as the Americans land in Algiers; their immediate mission is to ensure that the French guns are not used on the Americans, and then to try and rally the anti-German French and ensure that the Vichy authorities join the Allied cause. However, after an initial welcome, it becomes clear that there are many pro-Nazi elements among the French, particularly the SOL (Service d'Order Legionnaire) forces. Boyle and Harding are arrested and they see a group of young people who have been trying to start an insurrection against the Vichy authorities amongst whom Billy spots, to his shock and horror, Diana.

Boyle and Harding are soon freed by the invading American forces, led in their case by Lieutenant Kazimierz. He is a Polish officer who had been in love with Diana's elder sister Daphne who was killed in the first book. But Diana and the others have gone. Boyle is soon involved in a case involving the theft of drugs from a US Army Hospital and the demands of both this investigation and the realpolitik which dictates that Eisenhower negotiate with and validate the Vichy authorities, now represented by Admiral Darlan, get in the way of his burning desire to follow and rescue Diana. Eventually however the case, which now also involves a couple of murders, and rescue come together and Boyle is sent off with some British commandos, including Harry Dickinson with whom Boyle has a history and back-story from the first book, to the place where he believes he will find Diana.

It will be seen that this is very much a series book and, although Benn is careful to ensure that all the necessary back-stories are filled in, it would probably be helpful to read the books in series order particularly in terms of emotional impact. The factual background to the the story, in particular the divisions within the Vichy French authorities and the arrival of mass-produced penicillin, are pleasingly integrated into the story. The narrative is a helter-skelter one with incident piled on incident and Benn introduces another air-raid whenever the action quotient might appear to be flagging. In fact this is slightly unnecessary as the chase element of the book, the search for and rescue of Diana, forms a compelling enough motif. The mystery and spy elements of the book, which revolve around the hospital, are competently done but the perpetrator come as no surprise. However as far as plot is concerned everything is resolved in a satisfactory matter.

Having delineated all the book's qualities, and they are considerable, it is inevitable that one comes to the issue of the first-person narration. On the one hand this is a matter of personal taste; the reader's response to a first-person narrator will always depend on the extent to which they sympathise and empathise with the narrator to a greater degree than with third-person protagonists. But this series goes beyond that because the very deliberate aim is to introduce a certain kind of historical noir narrator, the tough-guy with a heart of gold, into a war story.

How does this transposition work? It hardly comes as any surprise that the fundamental attitude Boyle adopts is one of skepticism towards any political ideals or authorities crossed with a humanism of loyalty to his close-comrades and love for Diana. The first-person technique works best in terms of the action sequences and maintaining a fast-paced narrative; unless substantially subverted which it is not here, there is always at least a touch of the macho. But the major weakness of the technique is that it inevitably tends towards telling not showing, and what we are told, despite the period interest, has the limited philosophical and historical perspective of Boyle himself. This means a certain amount of repetition in any passages where the action slows and Boyle undertakes some reflection. Thus there are both plusses, the narrative pace and emotional involvement, and minuses, the limits to any penetrating analysis or revision, in this transposition of the first-person noir narrator to a war situation. But it is a bold and interesting experiment which certainly commands the attention and produces a highly readable book.

Reviewed by Nick Hay, November 2008

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]