The Billy Boyle WWII Mysteries by James R Benn

[Darthtabby]

They aren't aviation stories specifically, but I recently borrowed a copy of the latest Billy Boyle mystery from my library and was reminded how much I enjoy the series. The fifteen (soon to be sixteen) books follow Billy Boyle, a young cop from an Irish family in Boston. His family is less then enthusiastic about the possibility of seeing another Boyle die in an English war, so they pull some strings to get him assigned to the staff of a little known officer in the War Plans Division that one of his mother's cousins is married to: Dwight Eisenhower. Only turns out "Uncle Ike" isn't going to be sitting out the war in Washington, and he wants Billy to act as his personal investigator, discreetly investigating "low crimes in high places" that threaten the allied war effort: a task that often puts Billy in far more danger then he had bargained for.

James R. Benn has a remarkable talent for working obscure bits of WWII history into his books, all of which are quite distinct from each other. Another thing I like about the books is the cast, which includes a number of reoccurring characters, most notably Billy's friend Piotr Augustus Kazimierz (better known as "Kaz") a scholarly and aristocratic Polish exile working for SHAEF as a translator. The books are notably written in first person, with Billy undergoing a substantial amount of character growth over the course of the series.

Perhaps most importantly of all, they're page turners. I'm not a very fast reader and I've gone through most of the latest book in a matter of days (most of which I was working on).

 

[FalkeEins]

thanks for the heads-up.... love WWII fiction so looks like I'll be trying one or two of these out..

Currently reading Graham Hurley's latest ' Last Flight to Stalingrad'