James R. Benn

First sentence (from the prologue): It began as a glow in the night sky, a faint flicker barely visible in the swirling, low clouds and the pelting rain. Stephen Elliot saw it as he shut the door behind him and made for his automobile.

Premise/plot: Billy Boyle, our soldier-detective protagonist, returns for his eighteenth mystery in Proud Sorrows. In this one, set in November 1944, Billy Boyle (and his friend, Kaz) are on leave and visiting the home/manor of his girlfriend, Diana Seaton. show more They are guests of her father, but not the only guests. Kaz's sister is a guest as well and recovering from her injuries gotten at a concentration/detainment camp. She was experimented on. (Also a guest, her full-time nurse, a long-time resident of the village.) Diana herself is home on leave at this time. It should make for a lovely holiday--even for war times. Surely the end is near--at least on the European front, right? But this holiday seems doomed...

It isn't too long before Billy Boyle is back hard at work on a case, drawn into a complex mystery involving several dead bodies. A BODY has been found--washed up in the Wash--in a German war plane. Not so mysterious until they realize--almost right away--that it is not the German pilot in the pilot's seat--but a long-missing resident of the village, Stephen Elliot of Marston Hall. HOW did his body get in the plane? What happened to the German pilot? Elliot's death was obviously murder--based on the evidence of his skull--but was the German pilot murdered too? WHICH of the village residents are suspect?

The case keeps getting more complex as he begins to question everything and everyone....there are MANY secrets in the village. Not all relate to the murders, of course, but all must be investigated to sort out WHO had the motive and opportunity to commit what might have been a near-perfect crime.

My thoughts: I loved this one. I ABSOLUTELY loved, loved, loved it. I loved the small ("quaint") British village. I love how the village was peopled--the characterization was marvelous. I love how substantive the mystery was. I love how it hinted at history. (The victim was researching King John and how he lost his treasure when attempting to cross the Wash). I love all the side characters that we've come to know throughout the book series--Kaz, of course, Big Mike, Diana, etc. But I also love all the villagers. (Well, most of them.) The book had a WONDERFUL quality to it. This presents a different element of the war mystery. This isn't so much front-lines and battle zones (as some have been) but more home-front and behind the scenes. This doesn't mean that Billy is safe and that there are no dangers....after all the village has at least one murderer....

Highly recommend the whole entire series. show less

The second in the Billy Boyle series. Billy handles everything required of him but there is no doubt he would prefer to be back in his job as a Boston cop, patrolling the beat while twirling his baton. He was elevated to detective with family assistance and then made army lieutenant because of his distant family connection to the Eisenhowers. The story in Algeria involves the illegal activity surrounding the brand new, highly-prized penicillin. There are serious issues here including murder, show more rape and torture that came across as incongruous with light-hearted Billy, a character that would fit well at the “cozy” end of the mystery genre. show less

A newcomer to the Billy Boyle series can enjoy James R. Benn's The Red Horse" as a stand-alone, since Benn provides us with enough background information to follow the proceedings. Captain Boyle, a Yank who was once a detective in Boston, is a distant cousin of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom he calls "Uncle Ike." The book is set in England in 1944, after the liberation of Paris, and Billy is in a bad way, both physically and emotionally. After a mission in France ended in disaster, he show more was admitted to Saint Albans Convalescent Hospital for Allied military personnel. With his brain in a fog, he sees a patient named Thomas Holland plunging from atop a clock tower to his death.

St. Albans, which was once an asylum for lunatics and paupers, is a bleak and unwholesome place. There is no privacy, the food is wretched, and the patients are expected follow the rules or pay the price for their failure to obey. Although he respects his psychiatrist, Billy is reluctant to discuss what is tormenting him. Among Billy's symptoms are tremors (he is withdrawing from pep pills), insomnia, paranoia, and hallucinations. When more dead bodies turn up, Billy—whose condition is improving—begins his own murder investigation. He interviews witnesses, engages in breaking and entering, enlists the help of his pals (one of whom is a codebreaker), and begins to suspect that certain high-ranking members of British intelligence hold the key to solving the murders.

The author, whose writing style is fast-paced, lively, and expressive, provides a window into Billy's unsettled mind. We feel for this haunted man who is guilt-ridden, anxious, and worried about the love of his life, Diana, who was arrested by the Gestapo. In addition, Benn hauntingly portrays the other broken men and women in Saint Albans, who are trying to deal with the terrible carnage they have witnessed and the blood that will be on their hands until the day they die. This engrossing tale involves deceit, betrayal, espionage, vengeance, and madness. it combines psychological suspense with social commentary about the ways in which violent conflicts leave indelible scars on countries as well as individuals. Billy is smart, resourceful, daring, and empathetic. In "The Red Horse," he shows that he has the cunning and courage to take on powerful adversaries who are determined to conceal their reprehensible deeds. show less

Warning: this review contains spoilers

****

Billy Boyle is a cop from Boston. When the U.S. finally enters the Second World War, his family doesn't want him going overseas to be killed. So they pull a few strings, and his mum's second cousin (of sorts) gives him a job. The cousin? Dwight Eisenhower. The job? Working on Eisenhower's staff as an unofficial investigator. This first book in the series sees Billy investigating a murder at Beardsley Hall, where the Norwegian government is operating show more in exile.

Because this is a first book in series, there's a lot of groundwork to be done to establish the characters and introduce Billy's personality. Overall, he comes across as likeable, although it did get tiresome when Kaz, the Polish aristocrat who ends up helping with the investigation, keeps taking Billy's American slang literally, with allegedly humourous results. And Daphne, the English WREN who makes up the third of their three musketeers, feels ridiculous when she attempts to deduce the meaning of Billy's slang.

I also found it perhaps a touch "convenient" that Daphne got killed off in this book; a way to give Billy some trauma to carry through later books in the series, perhaps? Or perhaps I was dismayed because there weren't that many female characters to begin with and losing one of the few there were felt unfair.

Nevertheless, I would likely read at least one more book in the series, mainly for the setting, although I do also like the comic-book- or vintage-war-poster-style covers that Soho Press publishes them with. show less