How long can a mystery series about six years of warfare last? How complicated can the plots become, when we all "know the ending" -- our side won?
The answer that James R. Benn makes me think of is, how many people have complicated stories of the war? (Hint: Many thousands.) Well then, that's how many mysteries there may be room for along the way.
THE RED HORSE takes two enthralling facets of the British side of the war -- the use of an asylum as a recovery center for people whose information and importance shouldn't be risked in ordinary medical care, and the espionage teams playing back and forth between the Allies and the Axis -- to spin a risky and highly suspenseful tale of detection that our investigator, Captain Billy Boyle, feels compelled to sort out. Not only is the conduct of the war at stake, but so are his friends. And in every James Benn mystery, those friendships forged in mutual risk are the vital threads of the action.
In the preceding Billy Boyle mystery, Boyle raced around occupied Paris confronting crime and trying to liberate his beloved Diana. Reaching the end of When Hell Struck Twelve didn't resolve all of Boyle's issues, and the new book opens with his struggles to get hold of himself again, as he's locked away in an asylum where doctors may be trying to wipe out his memories, as he sees it: He's witnessing extensive forces of guards, and terrifying maneuvers around him. On the way to an appointment with the psychologist in charge, he admits to himself that he's "scared as hell." And against his own inner rules, he admits out loud:
"Everything's wrong. Shattered. I don't know how to get back. It feels like it's going to be like this forever."
"When you were brought here, you were severely exhausted, in a state of profound confusion," Robinson said. "It takes a while to come back from that. You were physically and emotionally spent. Add to that the effects of the drugs you'd taken, and anyone would have a hard time."
"It was only a few pep pills, Doc, come on."
"You continue to minimize the seriousness of the drugs you took. It was methamphetamine, and from what you said, you took enough to win the Kentucky Derby without a horse. Just because the Germans gave them to their troops doesn't mean they're safe. We're talking about Nazis, remember."
All of Billy's instincts for self-preservation argue against letting the doctor try the rest cure suggested, a medically induced sleep for some 40 hours, to reset his mind. But there are two vitally important things Billy needs to do: find a way to help his very close friend Kaz recover from a heart ailment, and resume the effort to rescue his beloved. When it looks like he can't do those without taking the cure, he yields—and for a while, even the reader won't know whether he's made the right choice.
As it turns out, some things go well from that cure. But not everything he's "witnesssed" while his mind was malfunctioning was a delusion: He's seen a death that looks increasingly like murder, and even for the sake of helping his friends, Billy can't let go of his hunt for the criminal and justice:
So far, there was nothing anyone had said about [the victim] Holland that hinted at a motive. Or even a relationship with a single person at Saint Albans.
Except for Doc Robinson, and he wasn't talking. From what I'd learned, Holland was likely to have been as uncommunicative with him in his sessions as he was the rest of the time. Maybe the files would tell the real story.
Maybe not. After all, the SOE and the OSS were not known for their fidelity to the truth.
Of course, Billy recognizes the kinds of trade-offs being made around him. And he's honest about his own limitations: "In a place so far down in my heart and soul that I might never find my way back from it, I could sacrifice hundreds of people, maybe thousands, to get Diana back ... they could all vanish in a flash if it would bring Diana safely home from Ravensbrück."
Fortunately, he won't have to go that far. But he will have to convince his superiors that a crime (or more than one) has been committed, that he's recovered enough to be the investigator, and that he's willing to put himself into the hands of the asylum staff again, to get to the truth.
James R. Benn is in no hurry to "finish" Billy Boyle's war; there are many marvelous quirks and twists of real history for him to braid into the investigative adventures that Boyle undertakes on behalf, in the long run, of his "uncle" General Eisenhower and staff, and the Allies. In the process, readers get more than the breath-taking risks and close-shave escapes of Captain Boyle and his friends: They get to witness a brash young American growing up in the theater of war, and see the groundwork that will in turn, after the work of many more men and women, lay a basis for a lasting peace.
Benn's writing is well polished, paced with suspense and surprises, and historically trustworthy. As he lays out the war, on multiple fronts, he also lays out the strength of friendship and loyalty. His books are a smooth blend of both facets, and worth every minute of exhilarating reading. You won't need to devour the other Billy Boyle titles before this one, but give yourself the great pleasure of catching up with them afterward.
Publication date is September 1, from Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press.
PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
No comments:
Post a Comment