When Hell Struck Twelve
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In the 14th Billy Boyle mystery, US Army detective Billy Boyle and Lieutenant Kazimierz travel into the heart of Nazi-occupied Paris on a dangerous mission: ensure a traitor to the French Resistance unwittingly carries out a high-stakes deception campaign.
August, 1944: US Army detective Billy Boyle is assigned to track down a French traitor, code-named Atlantik, who is delivering classified Allied plans to German leaders in occupied Paris. The Resistance is also hot on his trail and out for blood, after Atlantik’s previous betrayals led to the death of many of their members. But the plans Atlantik carries were leaked on purpose, a ruse devised to obscure the Allied army’s real intentions to bypass Paris in a race to the German border. Now Billy and Kaz are assigned to the Resistance with orders to not let them capture the traitor: the deception campaign is too important. Playing a delicate game, the chase must be close enough to spur the traitor on and visible enough to ensure the Germans trust Atlantik. The outcome of the war may well depend on it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In August 1944, Capt. Billy Boyle is working for General Eisenhower in the Office of Special Investigations of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, in Benn's stellar 14th WWII mystery (after 2018's Solemn Graves). As the Allies close in on the enemy forces trying to escape the Falaise Gap, Billy's job is to interrogate prisoners to learn about German plans to defend Paris. Boyle soon figures out that his assignment is a ruse to make it appear that the Allies are desperate for information about Paris, a clear signal that an attack on that city is in the works, when Eisenhower actually intends to bypass Paris. Meanwhile, one of the captured soldiers they question reveals that a French partisan group's leader, code-named Atlantik, has been betraying members of the Resistance. A briefing is planned that's intended to flush out Atlantik, complete with a phony mortar attack, but it goes wrong, and two men, including an American officer, are murdered amid the chaos. The author makes the most of the tense and dramatic backdrop to this high-stakes whodunit. Benn has surpassed himself with this installment.
