The Phantom Patrol by James R. Benn
James R. Benn returns with an action-packed addition to his best-selling WWII-based Billy Boyle thriller sequence with The Phantom Patrol. The Boston native ex-cop detective returns as investigator and crime solver assigned to “Uncle Ike’s” employees. His distant cousin is Basic Dwight David Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Pressure.
The novel takes place in Paris and the Ardennes Forest throughout the winter of 1944. The French capital was liberated lower than 4 months in the past and the Battle of the Bulge, the final main German offensive, had simply begun on this densely wooded space bordering Northeast France, Belgium and Luxembourg. The 200,000 sturdy German troops had been moved in nice secrecy to this 50 by 70 mile zone. Six weeks of brutal skirmishes left staggeringly excessive casualties on either side lastly ensuing within the Nazi retreat in defeat.
The creator prefaces the novel with a quote from J.D. Salinger’s brief story The Stranger printed within the December 1, 1945 situation of Collier’s during which the protagonist dispels the Hollywood delusion of a soldier’s noble dying.
“Don’t let any civilian go away you, when the story’s over, with any comfy lies. Shoot down all of the lies. Don’t let Vincent’s woman suppose that Vincent requested for a cigarette earlier than he died. Don’t let her suppose he grinned gamely, or mentioned just a few selection final phrases. These issues didn’t occur.”
Jerome David (J.D.) Salinger performs a big function in The Phantom Patrol. At first of WWII, Salinger was already writing brief tales with little success in getting them printed. His household was of Lithuanian Jewish descent and this well-educated younger man spoke fluent French and German. In 1942, on the age of 23, he was drafted into the U.S. Military and assigned as a particular agent with the Counter Intelligence Corps, 4th Infantry Division, working intently with “The Ritchie Boys.” He participated in energetic fight on D-Day at Utah Seashore, within the Battle of the Bulge and three different main campaigns. These experiences, mixed along with his participation within the liberation of one of many sub camps of Dachau Focus Camp, ultimately resulted in a number of weeks’ hospitalization for fight stress fatigue after the defeat of Germany.
The creator characteristically and deftly blends fiction with traditionally correct info, heightening realism and suspense whereas sprinkling the textual content with well-known personalities whose personal army adventures coincide with the instances and locations he writes about in every thriller. The title The Phantom Patrol references each the same-named actual and fictional reconnaissance unit, the GHQ Liaison Regiment of the British Military “phantom patrols” who offered info from the entrance strains to the highest ranges of each the British and American Forces. These intelligence officers possess high stage safety clearances and patrol in radio-equipped jeeps and bikes with one patrol unit for every division. This efficient community had been established by British Basic Bernard Legislation Montgomery and subsequently adopted by American Basic Omar Bradley.
Billy Boyle is as soon as once more working intently with Kaz, his finest pal and comrade-in-arms, Lieutenant (and Baron) Piotr Augustus Kazimierz, a member of Poland’s authorities in exile and translator on Basic Eisenhower’s employees. The novel kicks off in earnest when Captain Boyle finds a uncommon Albrecht Dürer drawing within the room of a lifeless informant after a late-night shoot-out on the Père Lachaise Cemetery. They had been too late to seize thieves within the act of retrieving stolen artwork hidden in a crypt, however on time for bullets to fly.
Billy and Kaz introduced the drawing to Rose Valland to determine. Rose was already working with the Monuments Males to find and return Nazi looted artwork and cultural artifacts to their rightful house owners. The MFAA, (Monuments, Nice Arts and Archives) program was created below the Civil Affairs and Army Authorities Sections of the Allied Armies to guard cultural property within the battle zones.
Rose Valland was an precise heroine of the French Resistance who was in place because the momentary curator on the Jeu de Paume when France surrendered to Germany and remained all through the German occupation. The museum was utilized by the Nazis as a transport heart and warehouse for his or her widespread looting of nice artistic endeavors stolen from predominantly Jewish collectors and sellers in addition to museum items. This quiet, unassuming girl hid her information of German which enabled her eavesdropping and saved meticulous notes on the works and the locations of shipments of the artworks. Had she been found, she would have been executed.
Rose witnessed the frequent “purchasing” journeys of Hermann Göring who chosen works for a deliberate Führermuseum to be constructed post-war in Austria and extra importantly, his private assortment. In 1945, Rose was commissioned as a Captain within the French Military. Postwar, she was extremely adorned by a number of nations for her tireless efforts to expedite the restitution means of returning these works to their rightful house owners.
The fictional central premise of The Phantom Patrol is that the “Syndicat du Renard” (syndicate headed by the mysterious, elusive man often known as The Fox), a community of German operatives, primarily SS males who have remained behind in Paris, infiltrating the legal sector persevering with to steal and divert artwork masterworks earlier than they’re recovered. They work with renegade former Vichy cops now with the Free French police pressure who retain their fascist/anti-Jewish leanings and have seemingly additionally infiltrated British intelligence.
Two of the lads shot within the metropolis bore tell-tale small tattoos indicating their blood sort above their elbow betraying their membership in The Schutzstaffel (SS). Billy Boyle and Kaz are tasked to eradicate the Syndicate. They report to Col. Sam Harding (Billy’s boss at Supreme Headquarters) who’s now heading up the OSS (Workplace of Particular Investigations). After a briefing with Basic Eisenhower, our heroes will probably be deployed from Paris to Brussels to Basic Montgomery’s Headquarters. Their cowl story process is that they’re to study the methodology of the Phantom Patrols to be able to prepare Basic Patton’s Third Military.
As soon as on-site, their briefing officer is none aside from the dashing film star David Niven. He returned to England after making movie like to Olivia deHavilland on the outbreak of battle with Germany to re-enlist. Benn describes Main Niven as an skilled Veteran who skilled with the Commandos, led a Phantom patrol and for the reason that Normandy invasion had been a member of Basic Montgomery’s intelligence employees. Separating reality from invention is solely speculative as Main Niven was a key member of the Basic’s employees however steadfastly saved his army service secret upon his return to Hollywood. The good-looking man was down-to-earth, environment friendly in his job and entertained Billy and Kaz with witty tales concerning the movie trade over a luxurious dinner.
Like Sergeant Salinger, Main Niven additionally has a dangerous and meaty function to play on this work of fiction. He accompanies the lads into the sphere within the neighborhood of the Ardennes Forest the place the motion heats up in a nasty firefight with some German troops. Earlier than The Phantom Patrol involves a conclusion, there are various fight engagements because the Battle of the Bulge rages on. The path of the community of artwork thieves is fraught with hazard on and off the battlefield.
Benn assuredly locations the reader on the battlefield, within the state of affairs room and within the thick of World Conflict II. His participating model and historic accuracy are positive to fulfill historical past buffs and thriller readers alike. He has written one other participating rapid-fire yarn with a little bit romance tossed in for good measure. New readers or followers for the reason that outset of the sequence will probably be happy along with his work as every novel can stand independently.
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Riveting, Reasonable WWII-Period Thriller That includes a Yankee in Nice Britain
Publish Date: 9/24/2024
Style: Historic Fiction, Thrillers
Creator: James R. Benn
Web page Depend: 352 pages
Writer: Soho Crime
ISBN: 9781641295437