Starred review from July 22, 2013
Pervasive racism in the U.S. Army during WWII frames Benn’s excellent eighth Billy Boyle whodunit (after 2012’s Death’s Door). In March 1944, Billy receives an appeal from an old estranged friend, Sgt. Eugene “Tree” Jackson. A member of Tree’s “colored” battalion has been arrested for the murder of Thomas Eastman, an English policeman, who was found with his head bashed in on his father’s grave in the village of Chilton Foliat. Tree is positive that the accused was mistakenly arrested. Boyle wants to help, but he’s pulled away into another homicide investigation west of London in which MI5 has an interest. The intelligence service’s role may be related to the fact that the victim’s landlords were two Germans who fled their native country because they opposed the Nazis. The superior plot and thoughtful presentation of institutional racism directed against American soldiers about to risk their lives for their country make this one of Benn’s best.
September 1, 2013
In the weeks building up to the anticipated invasion of France, D-day, things are hectic in southern England. Capt. Billy Boyle, a military detective, is surprised when an old Boston friend, Sgt. Eugene "Tree" Jackson, asks him to look into the case of a black U.S. serviceman who has been arrested in the murder of a constable. Tree's unit, a segregated division stationed nearby, helps Boyle snoop around as he tries to figure out who has made the enlisted man a scapegoat. Concurrently, Boyle has been assigned to help MI-5 investigate the murder of a British loan officer. Adding fuel to the fire, a missing girl's body turns up. Boyle steps carefully through the minefields of racism, espionage, and child abduction until the three cases intersect in a volatile, whirlwind finale. VERDICT Elaborately plotted, Benn's eighth entry in the series (after Death's Door) has his World War II sleuth investigating a deplorable side of U.S. military history. His use of an ongoing narrative throughout the book to explain Billy and Tree's backstory is particularly well done.
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
August 1, 2013
The eighth adventure in Benn's engaging WWII series finds recently promoted Captain Billy Boyle, special investigator for General Eisenhower, assigned to find the killer of a seemingly ordinary citizen in a country village. An odd assignment for a military man, made odder by the fact that Billy has been given orders not to investigate the German family who run the boarding house where the victim lived. Meanwhile, Billy has reconnected with an old friend from Boston, a black man called Tree, a sergeant in a tank destroyer unit. There is bad blood between Billy and Tree, but Tree puts that aside to ask for Billy's help in freeing a friend from his unit, wrongly accused of killing an Englishman. Juggling both cases, Billy finds himself in the middle of a simmering racial conflict between the black soldiers stationed in the area and their white counterparts, who resent the fact that the blacks have been warmly received by the English. The mysteries themselves are pretty standard fare, but Benn's thoroughly researched exploration of segregation in the wartime armed services is revealing and sensitively handled. Another nice mix of human drama and WWII history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)