The Red Horse: A Billy Boyle World War II Mystery
By James R. Benn
Soho Crime, 2020

Having survived the Liberation of Paris (When Hell Struck Twelve, 2019), U.S. Army Detective Billy Boyle and his loyal sidekick Lieutenant Kazimierz are back in England. They are brought to Saint Albans Convalescent Hospital in the English countryside. The hospital is really a secret installation for those in the world of clandestine warfare to recover from wounds, physical and emotional. Kaz has been diagnosed with a heart condition and his only hope is an operation the army won’t authorize. Billy’s issues are mental, complete exhaustion and amphetamine overload. Meanwhile both Billy’s lover, Lady Diana Seaton, an undercover British operative, and Kaz’s sister, Angelika, who he recently learned was alive and working with the Polish Underground, have been captured and taken to Ravensbruck, the Nazi concentration camp for women.

Billy is jolted from his psychic fog when he witnesses the death of a fellow inmate, Thomas Holland, who falls from the asylum’s clock tower. Having seen a second figure near Holland right before his fall, Billy, a frequent ace sleuth and former Boston homicide cop, isn’t inclined to accept the official view that the fatality was either suicide or an accident. His opinion is reinforced when another body with severe stab wounds surfaces. He sets about investigating both murders in the supposedly secure facility. Needless to say, his status as a patient makes the investigation extremely challenging. Billy must carry out his covert activities while maintaining his rocky recovery, shielding his actions from suspicious hospital authorities, and dodging the unknown murderer.

This is high octane suspense. What starts in a sanatorium leads to a desperately dangerous race to find a killer. I must agree with my fellow reviewer who said that chilling echoes of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Prisoner reverberate in every twist and turn of Billy Boyle’s life or death mission. The plot’s cornerstone is built on Operation Periwinkle, a disinformation campaign aimed at confusing the Nazis about Resistance activities. 

With consummate skill, Benn weaves a compelling variation on a locked-room mystery into a detail-rich novel whose high level of tension never lets up. It nicely balances action and investigation The Red Horse is right up there with the best classic mysteries. In other words, a winner!

—Irma Heldman is a veteran publishing executive and book reviewer with a penchant for mysteries. One of her favorite gigs was her magazine column “On the Docket” under the pseudonym O. L. Bailey.