James R Benn

"Lieutenant Billy Boyle could have used a rest after his last case, but when his girlfriend, Diana Seaton, a British spy, goes missing in the Vatican, where she was working undercover, he insists on being assigned to a murder investigation there so he can try to help her. An American monsignor is found murdered at the foot of Death's Door, one of the five entrances to Saint Peter's Basilica. Wild Bill Donovan, head of the OSS, wants the killing investigated....

What’s a twenty-two-year-old Irish American cop who’s never been out of Massachusetts before doing at Beardsley Hall, an English country house, having lunch with King Haakon of Norway? Billy Boyle himself wonders. Back home in Southie, he’d barely made detective when war was declared. Unwilling to fight—and perhaps die—for England, he was relieved when his mother wangled a job for him on the staff of a general married...

Praise for the Billy Boyle series:
“A meaty, old-fashioned and thoroughly enjoyable tale of WWII-era murder and espionage.”—The Seattle Times
“The World War II atmosphere and history are expertly handled.”—Denver Post
“Great fun. Benn knows his war history. . . . The novel introduces a batch of intriguing characters who seem destined to make another appearance.”—The...

"When an unidentified corpse washes ashore at Slapton Sands on England's southern coast, US Army Captain Billy Boyle and his partner, Lieutenant Piotr 'Kaz' Kazimierz, are assigned to investigate. The Devonshire beach is the home to Operation Tiger, the top-secret rehearsal for the approaching D-Day invasion of Normandy, and the area is restricted; no one seems to know where the corpse could have come from. Luckily, Billy and Kaz have a comfortable...

"Uncle Ike" (aka General Eisenhower) personally pins silver first lieutenant bars on Billy Boyle in Benn's stellar fifth WWII mystery (after 2009's Evil for Evil). In December 1943, Billy's leave with his British girlfriend in Italy is cut short. Orders send him to London to look into a Soviet officer's shooting murder, which may be retaliation for the execution of thousands of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest that's been blamed on the Germans...

"Just days after the Liberation of Paris, Billy and Kaz are brought to Saint Albans Convalescent Hospital in the English countryside. Kaz has been diagnosed with a heart condition, and Billy is dealing with emotional exhaustion and his recent methamphetamine abuse. Meanwhile, Billy's love, Diana Seaton, has been taken to Ravensbruck, the Nazi concentration camp for women, and Kaz's sister, Angelika, who he recently learned was alive and working with...

"Following their mission in the Soviet Union, Billy, Kaz, and Big Mike are sent to southern France for what should be a simple assignment: to serve as security for Royal Navy Commander Gordon Stewart, head of the Special Operations Executive's Section F in Algiers. Stewart's mission is to work with Resistance leaders in liberated areas to gather information that will help track down Vichy officials and other traitors who escaped with the retreating...