SEARCHING FOR JOHNNY

A humdinger of a beginning—contemporary British filmmaker enters time-shift and meets WWII American pilot—suffers from much of what follows.

Amanda, on location at a former bomber base in Yorkshire, is producing a movie on American flyers in Britain. The director, a tyrant for detail, insists that everyone “live” the time period. Hence, the Andrew Sisters impersonators sing nonstop in the lounge, and all the extras stay in military dress. Trying for some respite from all the serious silliness, Amanda takes a walk one evening and meets Johnny. At first, she thinks he’s a zealous method actor, but as their random encounters continue, she realizes that the film’s re-creation of the past has somehow found a time portal where the two are meeting. Johnny epitomizes all that was good in the American spirit of the ’40s and becomes both the center of the story and its unattainable ghost. When funding for the movie is withdrawn, Amanda moves on to other projects, but she can’t get Johnny out of her head. Through snooping, she learns that he was murdered and that a cover-up ensued—and she aims to discover the truth. She begins by tracking down the remaining crew (not without trouble, as both the FBI and the mob warn her off) to hear the stories they have to tell of the day Johnny died. Was it the Duke who killed Johnny? Someone from the past? And why does Amanda look just like Johnny’s girlfriend Alice? Into his plot, Gibbins bravely throws the Brontës, Margaret Mitchell, mobsters, military segregation, and the lost innocence of America, not to mention time-travel. And it all might have worked except for Amanda’s plodding narrative (as opposed to the old flyers’ reminiscences) making the discovery of the truth—and book’s end—a welcome relief.

Debut with merit and style, but also with a 50-year-old murder mystery that loses its sense of purpose.