Blue Madonna

July 11, 2016
Mystery fans may be disappointed that Benn’s 11th Billy Boyle novel (after 2015’s The White Ghost) is more a thriller than a whodunit, though the suspenseful story line, set on the eve of the Normandy invasion in 1944, will keep readers turning the pages. Boyle, a former Boston cop turned U.S. Army investigator who has been stationed in England for most of the war, is caught by surprise when MPs arrest him and he’s charged with selling military property for a profit. Facing a court-martial, he has only an inexperienced young attorney to defend him. To avoid punishment, Boyle, who’s demoted from captain to private, agrees to undertake a hazardous mission in France, whose success is threatened by a murderer. Only late in the action does he have a homicide to solve. The prose sometimes verges on the overwrought (“A tear made a tiny drop on the blank paper. The fibers soaked it up and it vanished, like a false identity long forgotten”), but Benn movingly depicts Nazi cruelties that Boyle and his comrades witness.

July 1, 2016
The Normandy invasion serves as backdrop for an army detective's toughest assignment yet: proving he's innocent of a trumped-up charge while rescuing a brave group of Resistance fighters.May 30, 1944. Despite being in handcuffs, series hero and first-person narrator Billy Boyle (The White Ghost, 2015, etc.) cheerfully welcomes the reader into his yarn, though he has no idea why he's being taken to the office of unimpressive Col. Sam Harding. Capt. Boyle, it seems, is charged with five counts relating to alleged black-market operations. In short order, Billy is busted to private and sent to the slammer, but there's a twist: an officer is on the way to the jailhouse to ask for volunteers for a dangerous mission. Billy doesn't have to be asked twice, although uncertainty about the assignment makes him nervous. A shootout proves to be Billy's intro to his comrades in the mission: Blake, the aptly named Big Mike, and Kaz, his sidekick on all his previous military probes. Their destination is London, and the ultimate mission is the safe passage of a group of Resistance fighters out of danger. It certainly doesn't hurt morale that many of these are beautiful young women. Meanwhile, what we will later know as D-Day looms. In the mix, but also on the back burner, is catching a black market ring, the Morgan Gang, which might be responsible for Billy's false arrest. Benn's 11th Billy Boyle mystery has snappy dialogue, satisfying action scenes, and much interesting history about D-Day.

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July 1, 2016
If you're a WWII buff and a follower of Benn's Billy Boyle series, you've probably been wondering what will happen to the army criminal investigator when D-Day rolls around. We're almost there, except that Billy's in the brig, convicted of black marketeering. Not to worry; it's a setup. Billy's new case involves infiltrating a gang of U.S. soldiers and British civilians who are plundering the massive stockpile of supplies being amassed in advance of the invasion. To make his case, Billy and pal Kaz must parachute into France days before D-Day to rescue a downed British flier who will testify against the thieves. Quite a setup, but it works, thanks to Benn's ability to transform lesser-known facts about the warin this case, the seriousness of the stolen-supplies probleminto the stuff of exciting fiction. But it's not all purloined cigarettes. By moving the action to Nazi-held France, Benn opens the story to the derring-do of the French Resistance: blowing bridges, hiding in tunnels, outfoxing Nazis, et al. This is a thoroughly entertaining, well-told war adventure, and since the book ends on June 5, 1944, we know there's much more to come.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)