Thomas F. (hardtack) - , reviewed on 7/4/2011 + 2701 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 3

Well, I enjoy reading World War II history. I also enjoy historical fiction and mysteries. So, unless the story stinks or has too much sex and unnecessary violence, combining all three is a win-win-win read for me.

Newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenant Billy Boyle is an Irish-American cop from South Boston who just wants to sit the war out in a comfortable billet without too much danger. Unfortunately, the relative whose states-side staff he was suppose to join in Washington got posted to England. Boyle enters London just after a German bombing raid and sees victims of the Blitz. Thus begins his continuing education that "no man is an island," and that perhaps he'd better play a bigger role in this war than he initially intended.

The war becomes more personal when people he has come to regard as friends turn into war casualties. And the English, a people he had been taught to dislike by his father's IRA-supporting friends, turn out to be people he learns to respect. And when some of them get seriously hurt, his detective skills are called on to find the people who harmed his friends.

He quickly finds that the resolution of the men and women who are determined to defeat the Nazis is sometimes countered by greed, murder, intrigue, treason, conspiracy and worse.

This book was an easy and entertaining read. I started and completed it within 36 hours over a July 4th weekend that also included another book and two movies. It reminded me of the old-style mysteries of the 30s and 40s that didn't need explicit sex to drive sales.

My only problem with it is that I am fifth or sixth in line to get the next volume in this series that people aren't regularly posting. I may have to resort to clicking on the Amazon button to buy the next Billy Boyle mystery.

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