Evil for Evil

June 22, 2009
A twisting, turning plot drives Benn’s gripping fourth WWII mystery to feature Lt. Billy Boyle (after 2008’s Blood Alone
). Billy, a former Boston cop and a nephew by marriage to General Eisenhower, on whose staff he serves, receives orders in late 1943 to look into a raid on a U.S. Army depot in Northern Ireland. The thieves took 50 new Browning automatic rifles plus 200,000 rounds of ammunition. A few miles from the depot, the body of a known IRA man was found shot in the back of the head with a pound note in his hand—the mark of an informer. Billy’s military superiors suspect the Germans are supporting an IRA uprising. As an Irish-American whose family is sympathetic to the Republican cause, Billy struggles to remain impartial as he investigates the various factions on both sides of the Catholic-Protestant divide. Benn offers no easy answers in this rich mix of Irish history and wartime intrigue. Author tour.

August 1, 2009
Can a resourceful GI throw a wrench in the German war machine by cutting off its support of the IRA?

World War II soldier and sometime sleuth Billy Boyle (Blood Alone, 2008, etc.) is enjoying a brief respite in Jerusalem, on leave as part of General Eisenhower's retinue. Even in the company of best girl Diana Seaton, it's hard to relax while the war still rages. Diana, a British intelligence agent working as a liaison for Eisenhower, has failed to tell Billy that she's leaving to go back to active espionage. When she does, their breakup is bitter, though of course they'll meet again. It primes Billy to charge headlong into his next assignment: going to Ireland to track down a cache of Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs) believed stolen by the IRA. While England battles the Nazis, the IRA is bombing British cities. An Irish lad from the streets of Boston, Billy is loaded with opinions about his ancestors' home. His preconceptions are challenged almost immediately, and he's put on the defensive when the British soldiers he's assigned to work beside sneeringly assume that he's Catholic. One of his colleagues is killed by a sniper; best guess is that Billy was the intended target. Undeterred by a mounting death toll, Billy investigates the theft and the murders.

Deftly keeps our hero's wide-eyed verve as he tackles a more complex plot that takes the series further from whodunit toward thriller.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2009
In Benns fourth World War II mystery, Billy Boyle, special investigator with General Eisenhowers staff, is posted to Northern Ireland, where his task is to recover 50 high-powered Browning rifles believed stolen by the IRA, which may be plotting to support Germany against the despised British. For Boyle, a Boston cop before the war, whose father and brother, also cops, are devoted U.S. members of the IRA, the case is fraught with ambiguity: despite his natural sympathies, he is forced to work with protestant cops from Ulster in an attempt to thwart the coalition with the Nazis. As matters progress, however, and as dead bodies begin to accumulate, Boyle finds himself awash in shades of gray: Catholics and Protestants alike capable of both good and evil, conflicting ideals on personal and even military fronts. Benn handles the Irish question effectively, giving context to the troubles and capably showing how WWII introduced an explosive new element to an already volatile situation. He falters a bit, as he has in the past, when romantic relationships take center stage, but this remains an entertaining series based on fascinating historical premises.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)