Big Mike and Billy hitch a ride with Allied bombers to get into the heart of Russia, where they are to investigate the murder of both an American and Russian soldier. Big Mike's plane goes down closer to the front and all Billy can think about is how to get back there to look for him and his fellow fliers. The base mystery, the locked room case is good and Billy is aided by an old nemesis, which was interesting. Kaz arrives a bit later in the story and Billy uses his Boyle charm to try to get to the front to look for Big Mike's plane, catching a ride with the Night Witches. Another great WWII historical mystery.

First sentence: "Number four's on fire!"

Have there really been sixteen books????? Road of Bones is the newest in James R. Benn's Billy Boyle historical mystery series. The series is set during the Second World War. Each book tends to take us somewhere different in the war. Road of Bones, for example, for the most part takes place in Russia. Billy Boyle (and his team) are investigating two murders--one Russian, one American. The murders were set up to look like executions, but just who killed them...and why???

Big Mike and Kaz star in this one as well as Billy Boyle. There is a COMPLEX mystery to solve. It will take the two countries working together to solve....

I really enjoyed seeing the Night Witches in action in this one!

Road of Bones is not my favorite and best in the series. But as far as I'm concerned the series can't really go wrong. At this point having followed these characters (and their circumstances) for so many books--I am 1000% invested. I care so deeply about these characters that the mystery almost doesn't matter. (Almost.)

I wholeheartedly recommend the series overall. Read them in order.

Benn's Billy Boyle series is an unsurpassed masterpiece of WWII writing. Benn gives readers a rare insider look at WWII from the American perspective, with impeccable research, plenty of action, and unforgettable characters. In this story, former Boston cop Billy Boyle and now an investigator for General Eisenhower, is deep in the Soviet Union. He is tasked with investigating the mysterious death of an American agent on a base in the Ukraine, while under the watchful and suspicious eyes of the KGB, whose agent was also killed. Benn adeptly sets up the tense atmosphere and explores the erratic and highly dangerous relationship between the Allies and the Soviet Union.
As in each story, Benn brings to light deeply fascinating history straight from the archives. Here we learn about the Soviet Night Witches, a group of true heroines who flew incredibly dangerous missions with rickety wood planes and little respect from their fellow comrades.
This story is exciting, compelling, and completely hits the mark at the very high bar set by previous Benn novels. For new readers to the series, please start at the beginning to truly grasp the breadth of the chronological series. Each story reveals how the war shapes Billy. Enjoy the complex characters surrounding Billy and the fascinating details of WWII action, battles, alliances, and deceptions all over the map of the war, from Europe to the Pacific.

James Benn serves up another black look at World War II in Road of Bones. Billy Boyle and his Polish sidekick are sent to Poltava, Russia, to a joint American/Russian air base in 1944. An American and Russian intelligence officer have been murdered and the Russians have ordered a joint investigation with a desire to finger the Americans for the crime. Boyle finds that his Russian fellow investigators was spy who had tried to get his Polish colleague killed in an operation in England. Bombs and bodies are dropping. Murky drug and other criminal enterprises are happening on the base. No one can be trusted. Very black war story with no happy endings.

3.5 stars
Those familiar with this World War 2 series know that the author presents a different area of the war with each book. Billy started out as staff to his "Uncle Ike" in London during the Blitz, but has been to Algeria with the Allied invasion, Sicily, German-occupied Rome, the Normandy invasion, the Solomon Islands -- he is an investigator and gets sent wherever there is trouble.

This time out he winds up in Russia. The plot is somewhat implausible, but the atmosphere of distrust, double dealing, and desperation is well-conveyed. Billy is joined by his Polish aristocratic friend Kaz in looking into the murders of two soldiers -- one American, one Russian. Everything in Russia is political and no one can trust anyone, even those supposedly on the same side.

Those of us who have read the entire series have watched Billy, who started out as a 22 year old Boston cop, age beyond his years and harden as years of war take their toll. His friend Kaz, whose family has been wiped out by the Germans and the Russians and whose lover was killed, is even more cynical.

There's lots of action in these books, but the human cost is presented clearly, and the times of despair and darkness. Thanks to the author and to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Billy Boyle is still doing well…

James R Benn has one of the best premises for a mystery series that I’ve seen in a long time. Billy Boyle is an Irish-American cop from South Boston who’s not exactly thrilled at the idea of fighting on behalf of England. His family isn’t thrilled either, so his mom gets him a job on the staff of a Washington DC general who is married to her cousin. That ought to be safe, but unfortunately for Billy, that general turns out to be Dwight D Eisenhower, soon to be in charge of the Allied forces in Europe. Even more unfortunately for Billy, who had just made rank as a detective and doesn’t really have much (any) investigative experience, Ike needs someone to look into a murder or two or twenty. And Billy’s it.

I very much enjoyed reading the early books in this series back in “real paper book” days, before losing track of the series as I moved to reading e-books almost exclusively. So I was happy to receive a review copy of the latest book in the series, Road of Bones, and have a chance to check in and see how Billy is doing. And Billy is doing quite well. He’s still investigating wartime murders, as one-third of the three-person Office of Special Investigations at SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces). In Road of Bones, though, he’s asked to investigate a couple of murders at a Soviet-controlled airfield in Ukraine that is home-away-from-home to Allied planes carrying out shuttle-bombing raids (Operation Frantic) over Germany. And that comes with a few challenges, not the least of which is simply getting to Poltava Air Station.

As usual, Benn has done a wonderful job of mingling a meticulously researched background with a compelling mystery for Billy and his companions to solve. Road of Bones opens with Billy as a tag-along on one of the Operation Frantic raids, which SHAEF has decided is the quickest way to get its investigators to the site of the murders. And after the reading the first chapter, I certainly now have an appreciation for how terrifying these runs were for the bomber crews, and the fighter crews who accompanied them.

Once Billy arrives at Poltava, things quickly get messy. By this point in the war, 1944, it’s clear that the Soviet Union and the western Allies will be going their separate ways, so things are extra tense. Uncle Joe (Stalin) doesn’t provide enough support to defend the Allied planes on the ground in the Ukraine, and it’s also clear he has his eyes on occupying Poland at the end of the war, which makes things difficult for Kaz, the Polish member of the three-person OSI team. Perhaps the best part of the book, though, comes when Billy ends up on another raid while trying to rescue Big Mike, the third member of their team. This time Billy ends up flying with the Night Witches, an all-female Soviet squadron who flew in wooden planes, and would idle their engines as they neared their targets, to be able to approach undetectably. It’s a sequence I won’t forget.

Finally, I realize I haven’t talked much about the mystery itself in Road of Bones. But rest assured it’s a good one as well, as Billy is forced to work with a Soviet NKVD agent (and particularly doubtful character) from an earlier book to figure out some “supply chain” issues that led to the killings. I won’t say more to avoid spoilers. And of course, Billy and his team eventually resolve matters in an action-packed ending ranging from Ukraine to Iran. But really, for me, Road of Bones was almost more about the history than the mystery, although both are great, and folks reading primarily for the mystery won’t be disappointed. I try not to give too many five-star reviews, to try to avoid star-flation, but Road of Bones has earned one. And my thanks to Soho Crime for the review copy!

Billy Boyle is in a British bomber, flying from London to Poltava Air Base in Russia, where he and Big Mike are to help solve a murder after their bombing mission in Germany. Big Mike was going with Billy, but the plane he was in was shot down near the Russian border. Billy sees five parachutes (there were ten men in the plane!). When Billy gets to Poltava, he finds he is supposed to work with a Russian NKVD agent Sidorov, a man who had been at the Russian Embassy in London awhile, and Billy and Kaz really disliked him.

Billy wants to find Big Mike, and finally gets permission to interview a guard who might know about the murders he is investigating as well as looking for Big Mike. He ends up flying with a female pilot in a biplane, and it only holds two people. They stop to refuel, and end up flying with the Night Witches to bomb Germany. When he gets to Zolnia where the guard is supposed to be, the guard is out with a penal unit finding mines. However, he does rescue Big Mike.

Things become much more complicated when Billy and his team find that there is probably some stealing of morphine and thieves selling supplies mixed up in the murders. Big Mike is sent to Tehran to a better hospital, and Billy and Kaz are a team again. However, there is a lot of excitement, shooting, flying, and work before they can close on their assignment.

For new readers, the Billy Boyle books are set during WWII and feature an army captain, Billy, who investigates the murders that occur on the edges (or directly inside) the war. It’s now 1944, and after giving Billy a bit of a break in the last book, The Red Horse, author James Benn plunges Billy and his sidekick Big Mike directly into the action. Road of Bones begins and ends with two bravura action scenes, a type of writing at which Benn excels. Action scenes can easily become dull or repetitive (to this crime reading veteran, anyway), but Benn is specific, descriptive in a concise way, and the pacing of his action scenes is perfection. The more I read, the more I think pacing is all, and Benn has the gift.

The opening scene is set inside a bomber seeing direct action. Billy is a passenger on the way to the USSR, but he steps in at one point, earning him the respect of the pilots on board. It’s kind of like the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan in its utter intensity and brutality. It’s the kind of scene that once you’re finished reading it, you need to give yourself a mental shake to be able to move on to the rest of the story.

The plane Big Mike was in has disappeared into the wilds of the USSR and while Billy is crazy to find him, there’s not much he can do about it at his new post, Poltova, where he’s to investigate the deaths of an American and a Russian soldier. The men were found side by side in the base warehouse, shot through the head with their own guns. The Russians would be pleased if Billy were to discover the culprit was American, and give him one of his old enemies, a Russian named Sidorov, to help him investigate.

As Sidorov had tried to frame Billy’s buddy Kaz for murder Billy doesn’t feel too kindly towards him, but he’s the translator and the connection to many of the Russian officers Billy must deal with. The two reach an uneasy truce, though it’s put to a test when Kaz arrives. Kaz, who had heart surgery in the last book, is still recovering, so he has gotten a gentler mode of transportation (not a bomber in action).

While Benn writes with all the detail of war – and this slice of the war seems especially grim and brutal – he also seems to have a love for the traditional village mystery, in his own way. Like Miss Marple, Billy often finds a solution by comparing the people he’s investigating in the present to some of the criminal types he encountered in the past as a beat cop back in Boston. It’s this type of parallel thinking that helps him to solve this complex crime.

There’s also his alter ego Kaz, the elegant, wealthy Pole who has lost his entire family to the Nazis. He has no love for the Russians and trusts no one in this situation. His worldliness is a nice contrast to Billy’s open hearted, almost optimistic, American, view of things. Between the two they illustrate the span of WWII and the heartbreak of it.

There’s a beautiful sequence toward the middle involving female Russian pilots, called the Night Witches. They flew light biplanes, turning off the engines before they attacked, making their bombing runs a total surprise to the enemy. The German soldiers thought the sound of the breeze through the struts of their planes sounded like broomsticks swishing through the air, and called the women Nachthexen. Benn gives these brave women their due.

The mystery, a complex affair involving smuggling and a network of thieves and drug dealers (something that seems remarkably contemporary) winds up with another bravura action scene involving planes, trains, and boats. Benn also gives the reader a good look at the attitudes – and fear – in Stalinist Russia. This is a grim story but it’s not all grim – there’s a very smart mystery at the center, and there’s Billy, Kaz and Big Mike, a truly classic detection trio. This is another great read from a truly talented writer.

Captain Billy Boyle has been in a lot of tough spaces, but none tougher than in the nosecone of a B-17 over Nazi Germany under heavy fire from the Luftwaffe. By the time the Flying Fortress reaches a U.S.-Russian airbase deep in Russian territory he’d earned the title of honorary bombardier and developed deep respect for the American airmen who’ve brought him there.
Billy and his team have been sent to a joint Russian-United States airbase in the Ukraine to solve the murder of two intelligence agents, one American, one Soviet. While the Soviet Union is technically an ally, Uncle Joe Stalin does not play well with others. It is clear that the crime will be blamed on the Americans, one way or another. In the spirit of cooperation –or is it? -- , Billy is teamed with a member of the Soviet secret police. He is also assisted by an American CIA agent who seems to have his own agenda. It’s difficult for Billy to know who to trust as he digs deeper into the murder.
James R, Benn is the master of World War II mysteries. His research into the history of the war is impeccable, and he blends fact and fiction into a seamless whole. The reader inevitably learns about some little-known details in each book. The title references a tragic and cruel aspect of the Soviet’s treatment of political prisoners. More uplifting is the story of the Night Witches, a group of brave women who were given the worst planes to conduct highly dangerous bombing raids. Great story, great characters, great history make great reading.

Another fast-paced mystery/thriller from James Benn. This time, our hero Billy Boyle, is flown to Russia to help solve the mystery of two dead men, one Russian and one American, shot with their own weapons. Naturally the answer isn’t simple, and I enjoyed being dropped into this almost forgotten corner of the war, when the Russians and Americans were allies. Or were they? Benn keeps us guessing, and in the meantime I learned something while turning the pages. Recommended for those who enjoy WW2 fiction, mysteries, and thrillers.

One of many in a series of mysteries involving the protagonist, a special investigator for the US military, this is an interesting read. There are US traitors, a "honeypot" trap, victims of Stalin's regime, drug dealers, and other characters and tropes from the WWII era and foreshadowing the Cold War. The most interesting thing to me was the apparent but unacknowledged/unrequited love the protagonist, Billy Boyle, has for one of his teammates, Big Mike. Boyle has a female love interest, but she's mostly forgotten in this story, and for the first half of the book Boyle is focused on rescuing Big Mike, but then seems uncomfortable in his presence. A set-up for a queer romance? I'm not sold on the protagonist--he's kind of a jerk--but maybe I'll read some of the others in the series.

Benn continues his tried and true formula (which definitely doesn't feel formulaic): a well-plotted mystery surrounded by fascinating World War II history. In this case, the setting is a base within the Soviet Union, where the murders of a Russian and an American have political ramifications. Billy needs to tread carefully as he searches for the truth alongside an unexpected partner, Kiril Sidorov, a Russian Boyle had previously encountered in London. At times, the twists and turns of the mystery seem contrived to make room for the history as when Boyle gets to ride with one of the legendary Night Witches. But it's exactly that history that makes Benn's works stand out. A must read for series fans.