A Bitter Wind
Sep 2025 · A Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Book 20 · Soho Press
Ebook
333
Pages
infoThis book will become available on September 23, 2025. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
In the final days of 1944, Billy Boyle investigates a curiously unprompted murder at an English airbase that operates cutting-edge and highly secret radio espionage work.
After his last mission put him in the tailspin of the Battle of the Bulge, Captain Billy Boyle travels to southeast England to visit his girlfriend, Diana Seaton, for a brief holiday respite. Diana is engaged in classified work at RAF Hawkinge, including Operation Corona, which recruits German-speaking Women’s Auxiliary Air Force members—many of them Jewish refugees from the Kindertransport rescue mission—to countermand German orders and direct night fighters away from Allied combat bombers.
It’s fascinating and critical espionage work, but it’s laced with peril, as Billy is soon to find out. On a scenic walk along the White Cliffs of Dover on Christmas Day, Billy and Diana stumble upon the dead body of a US Air Force officer, who has papers with highly sensitive, and strictly confidential, information on them. Information worth killing over.
As Billy digs into the secret world of codebreakers and radio jammers stationed at RAF Hawkinge, another body turns up. Now Billy must find out what connects these two men—and who was so hell-bent on silencing them. Enlisting the help of his long-time military comrades, Billy undertakes another thrilling investigation that brings him to a war-torn Yugoslavia, where Billy must rescue an escaped POW who may be the only person who knows the truth.
After his last mission put him in the tailspin of the Battle of the Bulge, Captain Billy Boyle travels to southeast England to visit his girlfriend, Diana Seaton, for a brief holiday respite. Diana is engaged in classified work at RAF Hawkinge, including Operation Corona, which recruits German-speaking Women’s Auxiliary Air Force members—many of them Jewish refugees from the Kindertransport rescue mission—to countermand German orders and direct night fighters away from Allied combat bombers.
It’s fascinating and critical espionage work, but it’s laced with peril, as Billy is soon to find out. On a scenic walk along the White Cliffs of Dover on Christmas Day, Billy and Diana stumble upon the dead body of a US Air Force officer, who has papers with highly sensitive, and strictly confidential, information on them. Information worth killing over.
As Billy digs into the secret world of codebreakers and radio jammers stationed at RAF Hawkinge, another body turns up. Now Billy must find out what connects these two men—and who was so hell-bent on silencing them. Enlisting the help of his long-time military comrades, Billy undertakes another thrilling investigation that brings him to a war-torn Yugoslavia, where Billy must rescue an escaped POW who may be the only person who knows the truth.
About the author
James R. Benn is the author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries. The debut, Billy Boyle, was selected as a Top Five Book of the Year by Book Sense and was a Dilys Award nominee, A Blind Goddess was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, The Rest Is Silence was a Barry Award nominee, and The Devouring was a Macavity Award nominee. Benn, a former librarian, lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida with his wife, Deborah Mandel.
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