Billy Boyle World War II Mysteries Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Billy Boyle | 2006 | Buy |
| Billy Boyle: A World War II Mystery | 2006 | N/A |
| The First Wave | 2007 | Buy |
| Blood Alone | 2008 | Buy |
| Evil for Evil | 2009 | Buy |
| Rag and Bone | 2010 | Buy |
| A Mortal Terror | 2011 | Buy |
| Death’s Door | 2012 | Buy |
| A Blind Goddess | 2013 | Buy |
| The Rest is Silence | 2014 | Buy |
| The White Ghost | 2015 | Buy |
| Blue Madonna | 2016 | Buy |
| The Devouring | 2017 | Buy |
| Solemn Graves | 2018 | Buy |
| When Hell Struck Twelve | 2019 | Buy |
| The Red Horse | 2020 | Buy |
| Road of Bones | 2021 | Buy |
| From the Shadows | 2022 | Buy |
| Proud Sorrows | 2023 | Buy |
| The Phantom Patrol | 2024 | Buy |
| A Bitter Wind | 2025 | Buy |
| The Ninth Circle | 2026 | Buy |
Collections
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Refusal Camp | 2023 | Buy |
Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| On Desperate Ground / Desperate Ground | 2000 | Buy |
| Souvenir | 2012 | Buy |
| Shard | 2021 | Buy |
| Freegift | 2022 | Buy |
James R. Benn is a mystery author whose career is defined by the Billy Boyle World War II Mystery series. Starting with Billy Boyle in 2006, the series has grown to 22 books, with new entries appearing annually through 2026. Billy Boyle is a Boston cop who gets assigned to General Eisenhower’s staff during the war and finds himself investigating murders in every theater of the conflict, from North Africa to occupied France.
Each book takes Billy to a different location and period of the war, making the series both a mystery sequence and a tour of World War II. Titles like Blood Alone, Death’s Door, The White Ghost, and Road of Bones reflect the geographic and emotional range of the stories. Benn’s research is thorough, and the wartime settings are as much a draw as the mysteries themselves.
Outside the Billy Boyle series, Benn has published four standalone novels and a short story collection, The Refusal Camp (2023). His debut On Desperate Ground (2000) preceded Billy Boyle by six years. But it is the WWII mystery series that has made his reputation, with readers following Billy through two decades of annual releases.