James R. Benn
1) Blue Madonna
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
"It's late May 1944. Captain Billy Boyle is court-martialed on spurious charges of black market dealings. Stripped of his officer's rank, reduced to private, and sentenced to three months' hard labor, Boyle is given an opportunity: he can avoid his punishment if he goes behind enemy lines to rescue a high-value Allied soldier. A secret chamber and tunnels, once used by escaping Huguenots in the 17th century, has since been taken over by the Allies....
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
"It's September 1944, and the US is poised to launch Operation Frantic, a shuttle bombing mission to be conducted by American aircraft based in Great Britain, southern Italy, and three Soviet airfields in the Ukraine. Tensions are already high between the American and Russian allies when two intelligence agents-one Soviet, one American-are found dead at Poltava, one of the Ukrainian bases. Billy is brought in to investigate, and this time he's paired,...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
August, 1944: US Army Captain Billy Boyle is assigned to track down a French traitor, code named Atlantik, who is delivering classified Allied plans to German leaders in occupied Paris. The Resistance is also hot on his trail, and out for blood, after Atlantik's previous betrayals led to the death of many of their members. But the plans Atlantik carries were leaked on purpose, a ruse devised by a colonel to obscure the Allied army's real intentions...
Author
Series
Billy Boyle World War II mystery volume 15
Language
English
Formats
Description
"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...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
"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...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.5 - AR Pts: 16
Language
English
Formats
Description
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 Globe and Mail (Toronto) “A memorable debut.”—BookPage ...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In the Pacific during WWII, Billy Boyle must discover if skipper, and future president, Jack Kennedy is a cold-blooded killer.1943: In the midst of the brutal, hard-fought Solomon Islands campaign between the Allies and the Japanese forces, Lieutenant Billy Boyle receives an odd assignment: he’s sent by the powerful Kennedy family to investigate a murder in which PT skipper (and future president) Jack Kennedy has been implicated. The victim is a...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
US Army detective Billy Boyle is called to investigate a mysterious murder in a Normandy farmhouse that threatens Allied operations. July, 1944, a full month after D-Day. Billy, Kaz, and Big Mike are assigned to investigate a murder close to the front lines in Normandy. An American officer has been found dead in a manor house serving as an advance headquarters outside the town of Trévières. Major Jerome was far from his own unit, arrived unexpectedly,...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A murder in wartime Switzerland reveals Swiss complicity with the Nazis in World War II, and US Army detective Billy Boyle is called to investigate.Europe, 1944: Captain Billy Boyle and his friend Lieutenant Piotr “Kaz” Kazimierz are sent to neutral Switzerland to work with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), investigating Swiss banks that are laundering looted Nazi gold. The US and Swiss governments are about to embark on diplomatic discussions...
10) Souvenir
Author
Pub. Date
2021
Language
English
Formats
Description
An American soldier’s life, from the Depression to WWII and the turbulent 1960s, is told through memory—and a dangerous secret. Secrets trail an American soldier from his Depression upbringing to the cold winter battles in the Ardennes Forest in the last months of World War II, and through the postwar decades, as he struggles to keep his family from being torn apart while keeping the truth buried close to his heart. Clay Brock, proprietor of Jake’s...
Author
Pub. Date
2021
Language
English
Formats
Description
Danger reigns supreme as Nazi Germany braces for a final showdown in this WWII thriller from the author of the Billy Boyle mysteries. On Desperate Ground is the story of men and women caught up in the death throes of Nazi Germany, struggling to maintain those things precious to them—life, an end to killing, and even sanity itself. Colonel Johann Faust has lost everyone he ever loved and feels he is going inexorably insane. He hears the haunting...
12) Billy Boyle
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.4 - AR Pts: 17
Language
English
Formats
Description
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 to her distant cousin. But the...
13) A Mortal Terror
Author
Pub. Date
2021
Language
English
Formats
Description
In his time investigating crimes for both the Boston cops and General Ike's European forces, Lieutenant Billy Boyle hasn't encountered a serial killer. But now it looks like he may--a serial killer with a particularly frightening agenda. Two officers from the American troops stationed in Caserta, Italy, not far from Naples, have been found murdered. Lieutenant Norman Landry was found behind a supply tent with his neck snapped. Captain Max Galante,...
14) A Blind Goddess
Author
Pub. Date
2021
Language
English
Formats
Description
March, 1944: US Army Lieutenant Billy Boyle, back in England after a dangerous mission in Italy, is due for a little R&R, and also a promotion. But the now-Captain Boyle doesn't get to kick back and enjoy his leisure time because two upsetting cases fall into his lap at once. The first is a personal request from an estranged friend: Sergeant Eugene "Tree" Jackson, who grew up with Billy in Boston, is part of the 617th Tank Destroyers, the all-African...
Author
Pub. Date
2021
Language
English
Formats
Description
A follow-up to A Blind Goddess is inspired by the controversial Operation Tiger tragedy and follows Boyle's investigation into the discovery of an unidentified body that has washed up on a beach near a secret training site for the approaching D-Day invasion of Normandy.
Author
Publisher
Soho Press
Pub. Date
[2023]
Language
English
Description
"Norfolk, England, November 1944: After a series of dangerous missions in the South of France, US Army Captain Billy Boyle is finally on leave, and is settling into a peaceful rest at the country estate of Sir Richard Seaton, the father of Billy's British lover, Diana. Seaton Manor is a comfortable haven, and Billy is eager to spend a few precious days in Diana's company pretending the war is far away. Unfortunately, Billy's leave is cut short when...
17) The Refusal Camp
Author
Language
English
Description
In his first-ever collection, the award-winning author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries presents an eclectic mix of new and previously published mystery stories rife with historical detail and riveting wartime storytelling.
"The Horse Chestnut Tree" explores betrayal and murder during the American Revolution. In the speculative work "Glass," an atomic supercollider and the breakdown of the time-space continuum change the lives of two cousins...
18) Blood Alone
Author
Publisher
Random House Digital Dist
Pub. Date
2021
Language
English
Description
Praise for the Billy Boyle series: 'the brash kid from Southie is still open, direct and fearless in his manner (and in his wonderfully loose-jointed use of the English language) and in no danger of losing his cover as a 'happy-go-lucky Yank.' But even amid the excitement of the spirited wartime storytelling, Benn allows Boyle's experiences to change him in ways both subtle and dramatic.''marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review 'thoroughly...
19) Death's Door
Author
Publisher
Random House Digital Dist
Pub. Date
2021
Language
English
Description
In this seventh installment of James R. Benn’s hit WWII-era mystery series, Lieutenant Billy Boyle goes undercover in the Vatican. 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...
20) Evil for Evil
Author
Publisher
Random House Digital Dist
Pub. Date
2021
Language
English
Description
Fifty Browning Automatic Rifles have been stolen from a US Army base in Northern Ireland. His 'uncle' Ike Eisenhower sends Billy to recover the weapons, which might be used in a German-sponsored IRA uprising. Bodies begin to accumulate as Billy finds unexpected challenges to his Boston-Irish upbringing and IRA sympathies. There are rogues on both sides, he learns.