The Refusal Camp: Stories
This collection of nine stories from the award-winning author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries is an action-packed mix of new and previously published stories. In the capable hands of an author who gets the historical details right, these stories are gritty, horrific portrayals of what war is like. Seen from the perspectives of those who are forced to dodge the bullets, bury the dead, and sometimes commit unspeakable acts they could never have imagined doing, the stories simultaneously praise courage and condemn war’s brutality.
Benn is at his best when writing about World War II; “Vengeance Weapon” and the eponymous “The Refusal Camp,” show how even in Nazi concentration camps, defiance, bravery, and revenge endure. During the Korean War, American POWs find their loyalty to each other tested to the breaking point in “Red Christmas.” A Revolutionary War-era murder mystery titled “The Horse Chestnut Tree,” and “The Secret of Hemlock Hill,” a gentle ghost story, seem thematically out of place in this anthology, as does the sci-fi “Glass,” but they are nonetheless interesting stories. “Irish Tommy,” a police procedural featuring Boston cops pitted against German spies in 1944, is a great introduction to the Billy Boyle stories and will certainly hook readers into reading them.
