Customer Reviews

Evil for Evil: A Billy Boyle World War II Mystery

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Like other reviewers, I have read all of the Billy Boyle mysteries, and I look forward to the next with anticipation.
"Evil for Evil" has the most complex plot of the series so far, and enough characters and conflicting loyalties that I almost had to make myself a cheat sheet. The author juggles the characters, the plot, the dialogue, the action scenes, seemingly effortlessly.

Others have described the story in detail, so I'll be brief. It is 1943, and Billy Boyle, former South Boston cop, Army lieutenant, and special investigator to General Eisenhower, is sent to Ireland to investigate the theft of a shipment of heavy guns. The Allies are concerned that the stolen guns will somehow be used to try to create enough chaos in Ireland (between Ulster and independent Eire) to hamper the war effort and siphon off troops from the European theater.

Billy is a wonderful character - Benn manages to convey his youth and generally sunny disposition in his thoughts. From book to book we see him maturing but still maintaining his informality and using his brains. In "Evil for Evil" he is forced for the first time to weigh the loyalties he was taught from infancy by his Irish Catholic family against the reality of life in Protestant Ulster, and to work with British police, the British army, and British spies to fulfill his mission. The contrast between the romanticised Ireland cherished by American descendants of Irish immigrants and the actual Ireland torn apart by decades of guerilla warfare becomes obvious.

Who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys" in this story? Every character has suffered heartbreak and injustice inflicted by the "other side". Each has reached his or her own conclusion of how to deal with it, and their actions intertwine to build the story.

For other readers of the series, there is very little of Diana, and no sighting of Kaz, so we will just have to keep waiting for them.

I've read all the titles in this great series, and Evil for Evil might be James Benn's best yet in the Billy Boyle books. If you like mysteries with just the right touch of action, skillfully crafted, you'll love Benn's books. Evil for Evil combines the familiar World War II backdrop of previous Billy Boyle adventures with the complex tensions of a divided Ireland. A former Boston cop now working for General Ike, Billy Boyle has never faced a dilemma like this one: enemies abound, from Nazi commandos to crooked policemen to mysterious beautiful women, all confounding his efforts to find 50 stolen Browning Automatic Rifles. One strange twist after another keeps the action popping, but this is more than an action novel. Benn's Boyle books are true mysteries that keep the reader guessing right to the story's conclusion. I'm hooked on this series and can't wait to see what Billy gets into next.

An enemy right next door may prove difficult for an already difficult situation. "Evil for Evil" follows Billy Boyle, as he is sent to Northern Ireland to potentially put a wrench in a plot that would allow the separate country to join the Axis powers. A tall order for a southern boy, James R. Benn crafts a fine story using much of the trivia of history in his tale. "Evil for Evil" is a top pick and highly recommended read that mystery lovers will simply relish.

Benn once again spins a tale from a theater of WWII that is off the beaten track. It seems only fitting that "Uncle" Ike would send Billy Boyle off to Ireland to investigate the theft of armaments and ammo from a base there. Billy's cop background helps him dutifully follow up the clues and leads to solve this mystery. Billy's time in Ireland gives him a lot to think about after growing up in a family that comes down on one side of the Irish debate, he reflects at one point that he's not sure he likes knowing both sides of this subject. Although I missed Kaz and a couple other familiar faces, I really enjoyed this Boyle story.

Billy Boyle, from South Boston, a former Boston cop from Southie, is now a second lieutenant assigned to the staff of his "courtesy uncle," General Dwight D. Eisenhower, to whom he is distantly related through Mamie Eisenhower. Assigned to the Office of Special Investigations, Billy does private investigations for the general as they move throughout the European theatre during World War II. In this novel Billy Boyle returns to his "home" in Ireland. Fifty Browning assault rifles have been stolen from a U. S. Army depot in Northern Ireland, along with more than two hundred thousand rounds of ammunition. The rifles are desperately needed by the allies, and the army believes that the rifles have been stolen by the IRA, which has already made several well-documented contacts with Germany. Promising to support Germany against the British in exchange for IRA control of Ireland and its reunification after the war, the IRA sees the war as an opportunity to create havoc and nullify the agreements which have resulted in six northern counties of their island being ruled by England.

The assignment is a particular challenge to Billy, a Catholic. Two generations previously, his grandfather emigrated to Boston from County Roscommon, and Billy has been brought up to believe that the IRA are freedom fighters against the British and their Protestant minions in Ulster. In Northern Ireland, however, he discovers that life is far more complex than he ever dreamed. Assigned to work with Hugh Carrick, an Orangeman who is district inspector of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Billy also works with the British general staff, the British Auxiliary Territorial Service, MI-5, the U. S. Army and its MPs, and local constables from several villages. Eventually, he must deal with members of the IRA, the Red Hand and other militia groups, the Royal Black Knights, and a mysterious "Yank," who appears to be following him.

An assortment of local crimes adds complications. A local man is found executed, an American MP is shot to death while in Billy's company, an investigator from Ireland is photographed dining with a known suspect, a high-ranked American officer is caught engaging in criminal activity in collusion with an even higher-ranked American officer, and the IRA begins a criminal investigation of one of its own. Paperwork is not shared among important investigatory agencies, and some of the paperwork seems just plain "wrong."

The mystery of the rifles and the peripheral mysteries are well developed, and Benn does a terrific job of juggling the complex details. Unfortunately, more than thirty characters make two or more appearances, and these represent a variety of interests, agencies, and police forces. Some characters lead secret lives, presenting a daunting array of complications. The highly complex plot does make sense, but it requires so much attention that the characters and, to some degree, the suspense, suffer in the process. The novel, however, provides insights into Irish history and the naïve assumptions of Irish émigrés and their descendants living abroad. Billy is a character with whom many identify, and though there are still aspects of his (undeveloped) character to be explored, Benn seems to be on track to continue Billy's development and that of the repeating characters, providing them with interesting and unusual new World War II adventures, depicted with honesty and sensitivity. n Mary Whipple

Billy Boyle (Billy Boyle Ww2 Mystery 1)
The First Wave: A Billy Boyle World War II Mystery (Billy Boyle Ww2 Mystery 2)
Blood Alone: A Billy Boyle World War II Mystery

Benn really captures the emotion of the Irish dilemma in this without it getting in the way of the mystery.

This is the best of the Billy Boyle WWII novels, but reading the ones that came before is not necessary to appreciate this one. For those who read the first ones, there's no Kaz and very little of Diana.

Boyle, the young Boston Irish cop who thought his relationship with "Uncle Ike" would keep him in D.C. for the duration of the war is this time sent to Northern Ireland where American weapons have just been stolen. Besides the crime, there is some indication that the IRA is trying to hook up with the Germans to get Ireland into the war.

Billy lands in Ireland, the land of his family's origins, mythology and devotion. He immediately is swept into the Catholic vs Protestant troubles and has to navigate through them as he investigates ancestral home country gets tarnished.

The mystery is quite good. Characters and good guys and bad guys shift and switch. Typically, Billy always seems to be behind the eight ball, but somehow he keeps figuring things out. There is less WWII history in this iteration than in others, but the mystery is better and the personal conflict Billy encoounters as he sees the fratricide of Ireland close-up lends more depth to this book than the others. There is, by reference, good history about the Ireland's position in WWII and the Orange vs Green, but the mystery is what carries this book.

Highly recommended.

I was hooked with the first book. Each book is so well written you have to read the next.

The Billy Boyle World War II Mystery Series has the protagonist, a former Boston detective now serving as a lieutenant on the Eisenhower staff, undertaking special assignments for Uncle Ike (Billy's mother and Mamie are sisters) requiring discretion. In this episode, he is sent to Northern Ireland where there is a large American base, part of the contingent preparing for the D-Day invasion.

Fifty Browning automatic rifles and a hundred thousand rounds of ammunition have been stolen, and the fears are that in the hands of the IRA, the Irish Republic to the south might be forced to come into the war on the Axis side if the weapons are used in an effort to "liberate" Ulster from the hated English. Billy, a Boston Irishman brought up to be a sympathizer against the English "oppressors," arrives in an attempt to find the BARs, but quickly learns of other schemes and of the differences between Catholics and Protestants, the politics of the region, and the history of the Irish troubles.

The plot is complicated by many factors, as Billy stumbles along to solve two mysteries. While much of the novel is action-packed, and the mixture of wartime intrigue and Irish history may include a lot of fiction, the story is a fascinating look at a little known aspect of the Second Conflict involving the Nazi effort to use the Irish question to undermine England's war effort. Had it succeeded, the war's outcome might have been very different.

Recommended.

Billy Boyle is a young, South Boston Irish cop who is posted as a second lieutenant on Ike's staff in WW II because of a distant kinship with Ike's wife, Mamie. Billy officially becomes Ike's "special investigator," a non-job in which he will be a go-fer. Sheer chance lets him successfully investigate a sensitive Allied problem. More successful secret missions follow in which he performs bravely and brilliantly at enormous risk. This is his fourth.

Now (late 1943) Ike sends him to Northern Ireland to work for British intelligence in investigating the theft of Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs) and ammo from an US Army munitions depot. It looks like an IRA job. Is a new Irish civil war planned, thus preventing the planned invasion of France? Billy this time is working alone without any of the cast of familiar characters from the other books.

Billy soon finds that the tales of the heroic IRA and evil Ulstermen that he learned at home bear little relation to reality in Ireland's green and bloody land, beset with ancient hatreds and a constant cycle of revenge and reprisal. As a Catholic, Billy finds that he is instantly mistrusted by the local police (all Protestant), and he gets grudging cooperation. His lot only improves when he acts courageously in trying to capture an IRA assassin who has just attacked a local cop's home (with a BAR).

Billy finds his way haltingly through doubt, murder, mistrust and treachery. He has no idea what games British intelligence is playing. A mysterious and unknown American seems to be following---and perhaps protecting---him. Some of the local US Army people are possibly working against him.

This whole series is a coming of age saga in which Billy, shallow, self-centered and provincial at the start, gradually learns about life, love, death and what it means to be truly human. In the series Billy must learn these things in the hardest possible school: War. He sees real courage (moral and physical), sacrifice, corruption, needless and unfair loss and the hard choices that sometimes must allow lesser evils in order to defeat a greater. Somewhat surprisingly (Benn is not a well-established novelist), the saga has worked pretty well on that level from the start. The Boyle character is well-drawn and increasingly self-aware and reflective. He also grows more realistic, but never cynical, as his world becomes darker.

In other ways the novels are less successful. Other main characters are mostly foils for Boyle rather than real human beings (although this is slowly improving). Plotting is also a problem. The missions themselves are unlikely for such a young and junior officer and Billy's stunts in pursuing them are often fantasies. Anyone doing this sort of thing consistently is unlikely to have a long life. Sometimes Billy has been aided both by some hackneyed plot devices (e.g. temporary amnesia in a prior book) and by the appearance of some pretty unlikely cavalry. The books are not perfect, but they are entertaining as a fun read.

One more word: No one attached to the staff of the senior Allied general in Europe who had performed as brilliantly and bravely as Billy has done would still be a mere shavetail after a year and a half. Time to promote him, Mr. Benn, maybe even to captain.