Death's Door

July 16, 2012
A special mission takes Lt. Billy Boyle to German-occupied Rome disguised as an Irish priest in Benn’s intriguing seventh WWII mystery (after 2011’s A Mortal Terror). Billy must find out who stabbed Fr. Edward Corrigan in neutral Vatican City by the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica known as Death’s Door. Since the priest’s cousin was a childhood buddy of FDR, solving his murder has the highest priority. Getting through German lines to reach the Vatican is no mean feat, and on arrival, Billy discovers that the authorities have already pinned the killing on a Jewish refugee found with blood on his coat. In addition, Billy has a more personal mission to consider—whether to try to rescue his lover, British spy Diana Seaton, who’s a prisoner of the Gestapo in a Roman prison. Some developments may be a bit coincidental, but Benn’s nuanced portrayal of Vatican politics will keep readers turning the pages.

August 15, 2012
In the depths of World War II, Lt. Billy Boyle (A Mortal Terror, 2011, etc.) is tasked with solving the murder of an American priest in German-occupied Rome. Who tasks him? His Uncle Ike, of course: Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower. The supreme allied commander apparently has an endless trove of thorny missions set aside for his nephew, all of which turn out to be survival tests. In Vatican City, Monsignor Edward Corrigan has been found stabbed to death, and FDR, whose close friend he was, wants an all-out investigation. So Roosevelt leans on Eisenhower, who leans on Billy. Though a homicide investigation is not exactly foreign territory to an ex-Boston cop, this latest assignment comes Billy's way at a particularly complicated time. British spy Diana Seaton, the love of his life, has been taken by the Gestapo. Given their famously untender mercies, Billy isn't sure that he should hope Diana's alive, but he's learned that she is, jailed somewhere in Rome. Monsignor Corrigan's murderer is also somewhere in Rome. The upside is that now, Billy too has been deployed where the action is. The downside is how quickly he finds himself a pawn in a deadly geopolitical chess game. Still, Billy knows that if a pawn plods straight ahead long enough to reach the last rank, "it can be anything it wants." The gobs of back story have the unfortunate effect of nudging charming Billy off center stage. A shame.

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August 1, 2012

This seventh mystery in Benn's historical series (after A Mortal Terror) finds Billy Boyle, a Boston police detective turned Allied intelligence agent, awaiting orders in southern Italy early in 1944. He and Kaz, his Polish partner, are ordered to Rome to investigate the death of an American monsignor in the neutral Vatican. Boyle also has an ulterior motive in that the woman he loves has been captured by the Nazis and is being held in Rome. Disguised as priests, the two agents make their way to Rome and soon find that the Vatican is full of escaped POWs and other refugees from the German occupation. Everyone has an agenda, and motives are hidden under layers of piety and diplomacy. VERDICT Benn has obviously done his research; the authentic details of Roman life during wartime add to the tension without overloading the reader. A couple of cameos by real historical figures also are handled well. In addition to series fans, this will appeal to readers who enjoy mysteries and thrillers with a dramatic setting such as the Second World War. [See Prepub Alert, 7/5/12.]--Dan Forrest, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2012
Benn's Billy Boyle series, starring the WWII lieutenant who works as a special investigator for General Eisenhower, rests on fascinating but usually little-known aspects of war history. This seventh installment may have the most intriguing premise yet: What if two allied intelligence officers, Boyle and his running buddy, Polish baron Piotr ( Kaz ) Kazimierz, were smuggled into Vatican City, in the middle of Nazi-occupied Rome, to investigate the murder of an American monsignor? Unlikely, perhaps, but teeming with dramatic possibilities. Vatican City proves a compelling setting, awash in internal politics and straddling gingerly its tenuous status as neutral territory. Posing as priests, Billy and Kaz investigate the murder, but they have a secret agenda: rescue Billy's lover and fellow agent Diana from the notorious Regina Coeli prison, under the control of the Gestapo. Throw in a German officer spearheading a plot to assassinate Hitler, and you have, well, a tempest under the dome of a basilica. The action leans a bit heavily on melodrama (crashing about dark streets, in and out of the Vatican), but the history and the many real-life characters add up to great reading for WWII buffs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)