James R. Benn. Billy Boyle. New York: Soho, 2006. Print.

—————. The Rest is Silence. New York: Soho, 2014. Print.

Billy Boyle is the first and The Rest is Silence is the most recent in a series of World War II military mysteries. The main character is a young army lieutenant—captain by The Rest is Silence—who had been a Boston policeman before the war. Billy Boyle gives us a lot of his back story. Billy’s father and uncles were also Boston Irish cops. They were veterans of World War I, and now it is Billy’s turn to serve.

Billy’s mother has cousins named Doud, as in Mamie Doud Eisenhower, the future first lady. Billy gets what he thinks will be a cushy staff job through “Uncle Ike,” but because of his police experience, he ends up becoming a special investigator for the general. So, yes, these are mysteries with a Crusade in Europe twist.

Billy works with Piotr “Kaz” Kazmierez, a Polish officer and baron attached to the Polish government in exile. A heart condition and injuries keep Kaz from combat duty, but he stays on as an allied soldier because he is fluent in six languages, he is an Oxford grad in back in England, and he has aristocratic connections.

In Billy Boyle they are assigned to the Free Norwegian Headquarters in Eastern England. They suspect one of the Norwegians is a German double agent, and one of the Norwegian officers apparently commits suicide shortly after they arrive. Billy has had enough experience and instruction from his father to know that the man was murdered. Then Kaz is injured and his WREN girlfriend killed by a car bomb.

Billy and Kaz together are able to figure out what happened. Without giving too much away, the spy is not the murderer—an interesting twist. In the course of the story we are introduced to brave Shetland Island and Norwegian fishermen who ply the North Sea and are largely responsible for getting the entire Norwegian government’s gold out of Norway before the Germans got a hold of it. We also meet the Norwegian underground and King Haakon himself. Perhaps most significantly, we learn of Operation Jupiter, the disinformation campaign which Eisenhower used to convince the German command that an invasion of Norway was imminent, thus drawing troops away from active theaters like Africa, Italy, and France.

The Rest is Silence takes place nearly two years later in late 1943 and early 1944 as allied troops in England are preparing for D-Day along the Channel in Southwestern England. Kaz and Billy have been able to stay at the estate of an aristocratic family in the area. The son-in-law of the current Lord Rupert was a college friend of Kaz’s. He had been an RAF pilot until nearly half his body was burned when his plane was strafed by a German fighter.

In the middle of the amphibious landing drills a body washes ashore—no identification, civilian clothes, shot twice at close range. So Billy and Kaz investigate the murder. While there, one of the drills goes awry and nearly a thousand men are killed either by friendly fire or a German attack boat that came upon them in the dark. Now the pair have to conduct an investigation to insure that no secret plans about D-Day ended up in German hands.

Meanwhile, Sir Rupert dies suddenly a day after the son of former servants who emigrate to America shows up. Though born in England, this visitor grew up in New York and is now an artist serving as an army lieutenant and cartographer for Eisenhower’s staff. He disappears and is found dead among the victims of the German attack boat—except that he had been given orders specifically not to get involved in the training exercises. Like the apparent suicide in the first novel, with the help of an army surgeon Billy proves that the young mapper was murdered.

In Billy Boyle, Benn introduces a few historical figures like Eisenhower and King Haakon. He does the same in The Rest is Silence except that these figures are less expected and perhaps more fun. They, too, though, are based on historical events. While investigating the potential loss of secrets form the landing exercises, Billy and Kaz come across American sailor Lawrence Berra, known as Yogi. He assists them a bit and also delivers a couple of head-scratchers he would become famous for like “The future isn’t what it used to be.” Berra did, in fact, participate in the Normandy landings.

Billy reports to temporary headquarters at another rural estate in the area that has been taken over by the British Army. There he runs into the owner of the house who has been living in London but returned home for a day or two to retrieve some belongings she needed. The owner of the house is Agatha Mallowan, a.k.a. Agatha Christie. He discusses the case of the murdered artist lieutenant, and she gives him a piece of advice that could have come straight from Downton Abbey.

This novel is also historically interesting. One local gangster is based on a historical figure. Agatha Christie’s home in Devonshire was indeed used by the British Army during the war, and more American soldiers were killed in the Slapton Sands drill disaster than at Utah Beach, the landing in Normandy that they were preparing for.

This novel also got the military material straight and told a great story. I confess that I figured out who killed the cartographer, but like something by Christie, there were several surprising twists in the plot with a really big one at the end. The last time I think I was so surprised by a plot twist was over forty years ago when I read The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Oh yes, as you can guess from the title, there were some Shakespeare allusions, too. A real kick amid the burdens of war.