117. Billy Boyle

By:  James R. Benn
Rated 4.5 Stars
From:  Library

This is a mystery series that is right up my alley.  I will be reading more of these books.

LIBRARY SUMMARY:

Billy Boyle is the youngest member of the Boyle clan in the Boston Police Department. A tightly knit Irish family, their fierce loyalties extend little beyond each other, Ireland, and the police force where Billy’s father and uncles also serve. The year is 1941, and they have paved the way for Billy’s promotion to Detective through the time-honored traditions of politics and patronage. Then World War II breaks out. The family’s political connections secure Billy a commission and post with a distant relative of Mrs. Boyle’s, a general serving with the War Plans Department in Washington D.C. where Billy is to safely sit out the war. Unfortunately for the Boyles, that unknown general is Dwight David Eisenhower, who whisks Billy off to England when he is appointed Commander of U.S. forces in Europe . This is definitely not what Billy expected, nor is really qualified for. He must rely on his native wits to keep himself alive and avoid humiliating his family as he conducts his first investigation into the death of an official of the Norwegian government in exile.
Billy Boyle tells the story of the beginning of Billy’s transformation from a self-centered wise guy interested only in his own survival, to a reluctantly heroic figure. Typically American, Billy never loses his disdain for authority or the cynicism of a city cop as he slowly grows into his role as Ike’s secret investigator. The climatic scene of the story takes place in Nordland, along the rocky coastline and the rugged mountains of this northern-most province in Norway. Nordland, the land of legends, a distant place to which a hero must journey to seek the truth, and which reveals to him his true self, changing him forever. It is here, where according to the Norse legends, ‘by a strand of corpses…heavy streams must be waded through by breakers of pledges and murderers’.

120. Evil for Evil

By:  James R. Benn
Rated 4.5 Stars
From:  Library
Once again I am reading a series out of order but I don't think order is all that important in mysteries where the stories stand pretty much alone.  I will definitely be reading more of these books.

LIBRARY SUMMARY:

Billy Boyle is sent to Northern Ireland, at the request of the British government, to investigate links between the Irish Republican Army and the Germans.  Automatic weapons have been stolen from a U.S. Army base, and an IRA man has been found dead, shot in the head and left with a pound note in his hand; the mark of the informer.  Billy is forced to confront not only danger from German agents, IRA killers and Unionist thugs, but also his own family history, which reaches back generations to the starvation days of the Irish Potato Blight.  

120. Rizzo's War

 By:  Lou Manfredo
Rated 4 Stars
From:  Library

I liked this book more than I thought I was going to.  I was expecting a typical cops and robbers story and that is what this was, only better written than most.  It also had a good back story that helped give the characters more interest than usual.


Publisher Summary

Rizzo’s War, Lou Manfredo’s stunningly authentic debut, partners a rookie detective with a seasoned veteran on his way to retirement in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

“There’s no wrong, there’s no right, there just is.” This is the refrain of Joe Rizzo, a decades-long veteran of the NYPD, as he passes on the knowledge of his years of experience to his ambitious new partner, Mike McQueen, over a year of riding together as detectives in the Sixty-second Precinct in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. McQueen is fresh from the beat in Manhattan, and Bensonhurst might as well be China for how different it is. They work on several cases, some big, some small, but the lesson is always the same. Whether it’s a simple robbery or an attempted assault, Rizzo’s saying always seems to bear out.

When the two detectives are given the delicate task of finding and returning the runaway daughter of a city councilman, who may or may not be more interested in something his daughter has taken with her than in her safety, the situation is much more complex. By the end of Rizzo and McQueen’s year together, however, McQueen is not surprised to discover that even in those more complicated cases, Rizzo is still right—there’s no wrong, there’s no right, there just is.

Rizzo’s War is an introduction to a wonderful new voice in crime fiction in the Big Apple, ringing with authenticity, full of personality, and taut with the suspense of real, everyday life in the big city.