James R. Benn, A Blind Goddess

James R. Benn, A Blind Goddess
© 2013 James R. Benn
Soho Press, Inc.
eISBN 978-1-61695-193-1


I seem somehow to be falling behind.  This is, in my opinion, one of the finest mystery/historical fiction series going, and I’m up only to book 8 (there are 5 more in print and another due in a month or so).  And this is one of the best entries in the series, which has become a epic, accurate depiction of some of the events that shaped World War II.


Billy Benn, whose family is related by marriage to Dwight Eisenhower, has spent his time in World War II as a special investigator for Ike.  He finds himself in the village of Newbury in the southeast of England, in March 1944.  One of the British intelligence gurus whom Billy has had much contact, Major Cosgrove, wants Billy to look into the murder of Stuart Neville, and tasks Billy with seeing to it that the murder is treated as a simple murder.  Which, of course, convinces Billy that there is something else going on, especially as the home in which Neville was living is owned by a German refugee family.  


He also has had a call for help a call for help from a friend from his teenage years, Eugene (Tree) Jackson.  Tree is a sergeant in a battalion of tank destroyers; also from Boston, Tree is black (as is the battalion, except for, of course, the officers)..  And his gunner, Abraham (nicknamed Angry) Smith in imprisoned, facing a court-martial, on a charge of murder, the victim being a local constable.  Tree, who is certain Angry is innocent, is hoping Billy can look into it.  Billy, who has 5 days’ leave, is hoping to spend them with Diane Seaton, the woman he loves.  


Diane (who is in the Special Operations Executive) plans to meet Billy.  But first she has an appointment with a high-ranking official in the Foreign Office, to try to persuade him that England, and the Allies in general, need to do something about the German extermination camps.


If that’s not a complicated enough situation, a young girl, a refugee from the Channel Islands, has disappeared from the group home/school in which she has been relocated.


The continuing characters—Billy, Diane, Kaz (a Polish noble and officer in the Polish army—which is now in exile), and Big Mike (a Detroit cop now in the army)—a group who would only have found each other in the dislocations of war, are all finely characterized.  And the characters specific to this book—the local police, a man who operates a sweets shop, the office staff of a Building Society (where Neville worked), and other—provide depth to the narrative.  And the depiction of village life during wartime seems absolutely perfect.


And Benn’s account of the treatment of black soldiers in the midst of this war is both historically accurate and a fairly damning portrayal both of the U.S. military in the 1940s and of the wider society.  One interesting side note comes from Benn’s afterword, in which he describes his research, and provided me with the first positive thing (other than his strategic and tactical strengths as a general) I have ever read about George Patton.  As it happened, the first black armored unit to see battle during the war was assigned to Patton, whose welcome to them included this:  “I don’t care what color you are, so long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sonsabitches…”  And they did.



In case you were wondering, the title derives from this poem, which is also on the opening page of the book.

That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we blacks are wise:
Her bandage hide two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.

Langston Hughes, “Justice”
from The Panther and the Lash