I’ll follow Billy Boyle, Ike’s honorary nephew and personal investigator, anywhere. I already have–on shore to Norway and North Africa and Sicily and Normandy and anywhere else Ike details him to clean up some Allied mess that needs never to see the light of day.

It’s November 1944, and this time Billy’s on leave at Seaton Manor in Norfolk, the home of his lady love, Diana. Tide and storm washes a German bomber ashore from the North Sea, inside which is found a German crew with a British pilot in the left seat. Said pilot has been murdered. So much for Billy’s leave.

As always Billy’s viewpoint entertains.

The damp stone walls held in the chill, which was good for corpses as well as wine.

and

[Kaz] was onto something, but his research had been interrupted by the inconvenience of a bomb plot against the royal family.

The nerve.

This is one of Benn’s best mysteries. Suspects litter the landscape–one might even be inside the house Billy is staying in–and potential motives are personal, political, military, and even historical. The third murder is painful in a way that puts all the death we have seen at Billy’s side over the course of the war in sharp perspective. The last victim will stay with you.

Book Review Monday Chatter James R. Benn Proud Sorrows