The White Ghost

1943: In the midst of the brutal, hard-fought Solomon Islands campaign between the Allies and the Japanese forces, Lieutenant Billy Boyle receives an odd assignment: he’s sent by the powerful Kennedy family to investigate a murder in which PT skipper (and future president) Jack Kennedy has been implicated. The victim is a native coastwatcher, an allied intelligence operative, whom Kennedy discovered on the island of Tulagi with his head bashed in. That’s Kennedy’s story, anyhow.

Kennedy was recovering in the Navy hospital on the island after the sinking of his PT-109 motor torpedo boat. The military hasn’t decided yet whether to make him a hero for surviving the attack, or have him court-martialed for losing the boat, and the last thing the Kennedy clan wants is a murder charge hanging over his head. Billy knows firsthand that he shouldn’t trust Jack: the man is a charmer, a womanizer, and, when it suits his needs, a liar. But would he kill someone in cold blood? And if so, why? The first murder is followed by two more, and to find the killer, Billy must sort through a tangled, shifting web of motives and identities, even as combat rages all around him.

James R. Benn is the author of the Billy Boyle World War II mysteries. The debut,Billy Boyle, was named one of five top mysteries of 2006 by Book Sense and was a Dilys Award nominee. Subsequent books have received starred reviews inPublishers Weekly and Library Journal, and been listed as the BookpageMystery of the Month. Two have been tagged a “Killer Book” by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.A Blind Goddess is long-listed for the Dublin Literary Award and The Rest Is Silence is a Barry Award nominee. A librarian for many years, Benn lives in Connecticut with his wife, Deborah Mandel.