From the Shadows (A Billy Boyle WWII Mystery)
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) spy organization pulls Billy Boyle out of North Africa in October 1944 as WWII winds down. Boyle’s orders require him to find radio operator Richard (Dickie) Thorne on the island of Crete and then head to France. There Boyle and Thorne will coordinate with Allied forces and French Resistance groups to ferret out German sympathizers.
Soon Boyle learns he is not operating in a simple us-versus-them conflict. A few years before, French freedom fighters had formed an independent state in the rugged region of Vercors. Allies promised them soldiers and equipment to fend off the surrounding Germans, but the aid never arrived. The Germans slaughtered the Vercors fighters and their families. Some of the few Vercors survivors now seek revenge against the Allied officers who betrayed them. On the evening Dickie and Boyle arrive in France, someone murders Dickie. Boyle and his small team now must help recruit loyal resistance fighters, find leads to German collaborators, and track down Dickie’s killer or killers, never sure whom they can trust. The pursuit takes them to heavy fighting, where a combat team of Japanese-American soldiers challenges dug-in Germans. Hawaiian Senator Inouye, as a young soldier, makes a cameo appearance, as do the sons of Sinclair Lewis and Ernest Hemingway.
Benn’s research of people, places, and war operations is impressive. Historical facts and the fiction storylines mesh well. The descriptions of deadly encounters, whether small or large-scale, are riveting. However, too often conversations among the main characters stray from the core plots with repetitive historical information and social justice grievances that feel spliced in. Overall, though, this is an effective account of little-known WWII theatres.
