Title: My Name Is Jimmy
Author: Garrick Jones
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 90 Pages
Category: Historical (Post-World War II)
Rating: 4 Stars
At a Glance: My Name Is Jimmy is a gritty, lusty story of vengeance and endurance, set in a lawless frontier in the aftermath of World War II. Not a romance by the strictest definition of the genre, but the man who’d once considered himself opportunistic when it came to sex does find someone who makes him want to change his ways.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: In 1947, James “Jimmy” Bacon becomes involved in a violent workplace altercation fuelled by a PTSD-induced rage. His boss, a fellow war-veteran, tells him to take a few months off work, have a holiday, go somewhere warm, and get his head together.
Jimmy decides to take a coastal steamer to the northernmost outpost of Australia, Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, to visit the grave of his oldest friend, Sandy, killed during the Japanese bombing of the city in 1942. Upon arriving, he discovers that Sandy’s death is not as simple as military records seemed to indicate. After learning that Sandy’s grave contains only an arm with no distinguishing features, he starts asking questions around town in order to find out what really happened to his mate.
The more he asks, the more he discovers that Darwin is less about post-war reconstruction and more about drugs, gambling, and the excessive consumption of alcohol. It’s a lawless city where 95% of the population is male and prostitution is banned, creating a thriving underworld where rough frontier-town blokes and men from the armed forces are doing more with each other than having a beer and passing the time of day.
While digging deeper, Jimmy discovers a terrible truth, arousing the interest of men who would do anything to keep the past a secret—men who consider his life of little value. Jimmy is forced to rely on quick thinking and his army training when death comes looking for him in the dead of night.
Review: In a mere ninety pages, author Garrick Jones tells a compelling story set in the aftermath of World War II and, in the process, enlightened me on a bit of history I was unfamiliar with until now. The crux of the story, however, is not as much about the bombing of Darwin, in February of 1942, as it is the story of the resulting death, destruction, and the war’s overall impact on the survivors, the scars—both the visible and invisible—still evident.
Jimmy Bacon, the story’s narrator, is not what anyone would call a warm and sensitive sort. He prefers his sex no-strings-attached, and suffers from what would have been known then as combat fatigue. He introduces readers to Darwin’s pockmarked streets and bombed out buildings and steamy back alleys when he’s ordered to take some time off after a physical altercation at work. So he sets out on a journey to uncover the story of how his best mate, Sandy, met his fate, and to take photos of Sandy’s gravesite so his parents might find some sort of closure. What Jimmy discovers in his search for answers, however, is much more complicated and crueler than expected, leaving him and a small group of like-minded men to deliver their own brand of justice in this lawless frontier.
My Name Is Jimmy is a gritty, lusty story of vengeance and endurance, and while it’s not a romance by the strictest definition of the genre, the man who’d once considered himself opportunistic when it came to sex does find someone who makes him want to change his ways.
You can buy My Name Is Jimmy here:
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