Book Review: Billy Boyle by James R. Benn (Billy Boyle #1)

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Strong characters and sense of time, good mystery

Cons: Historical detail does slow things down at times

The Bottom Line:

Hunt for spy; killer

Introduces character

A trip back in time

Search for the Spy

I’ve heard about the Billy Boyle mysteries several times over the years.  It had crossed my radar yet again right before a friend started raving about them.  That was the added push I needed to travel back to World War II with the first in the series, entitled Billy Boyle.

Billy had just made detective in the Boston police department when World War II hit America.  In an effort to keep him away from the front lines, his family uses their connections to General Eisenhower and Billy finds himself assigned as Uncle Ike’s personal investigator.

Billy’s arrival in London in the summer of 1942 is just in time because there is about to be a meeting to discussion Operation Jupiter, the plans to invade Norway and free it from the Germans.  There’s just one problem – there is a spy in the ranks, and no one knows who it is.  So Billy goes to the meeting to see if he can find the spy before the plans for the invasion are ruined.  However, things are complicated when one of the exiled Norwegian officials dies under mysterious circumstances.  Does Billy have a murder on his hands?  Can he find the spy?

World War II has always been a time in history that fascinates me, however this book made me realize there are large parts of it I don’t know much about.  While many of the characters are obviously fictional, Operation Jupiter was a very real part of the war – and if I had heard about it in the past, I had forgotten about it.  I enjoyed learning about it here, and it provided a wonderful backdrop to the action.

Unfortunately, I did find that action to be hit and miss.  The author had obviously done a lot of research on the time period, and he was anxious to share that with us.  Some of that period detail resulted in a slower story than I would normally enjoy.  It’s a curse I’ve found in other historical series as well.

And yet.

And yet I found myself captivated by the characters and the world that surrounds them.  Billy leads a cast of very real characters even if most of them are fictional.  I loved Billy, someone who is out of his element but is trying not to show it.  That vulnerability is especially appealing.  While he really doesn’t know anyone when the book starts, he quickly makes some friends, and I look forward to seeing them again in future books.

Don’t misunderstand, either.  There is a good story where.  The murder part is a classic locked room mystery, and everything is explained by the time we reach the end.  The suspects and their motives are strong – assuming of course it was even murder.

This isn’t one of my typical cozies, and I wasn’t sure what I might find in the way of content.  I was very happy to find that it was still very mild.  There is a smattering of foul language and the violence never gets more detailed than it truly needs to be.  I was especially impressed with the restraint Billy showed when it came to the women he encountered.  It was a refreshing change from some of the non-cozy series out there.

The book has a mixed tone.  There are some very light, fun parts that made me smile if not laugh.  There are other parts that get pretty deep.  These are balanced perfectly for a richer story.

I’m coming to this series late, so I have a lot of catching up to do, but make no mistake – I will be reading more books in this series.  Now that I’ve met Billy Boyle, I have to know what happens to him next.

Fight through more of World War II with the rest of the Billy Boyle Mysteries.