New from Soho Press: The First Wave by James R. Benn.About the book, from the author's website:
The pursuit of truth in wartime is never as dangerous as when it forces a choice between the greater good and the life of a loved one. For Lt. Billy Boyle, that choice is as hard as the unforgiving rocky landscape of Algeria where the American Army receives its baptism of fire in the Second World War. A headquarters staff officer serving with General Eisenhower, Billy finds himself in the lead landing craft of the invasion of French Northwest Africa on a wet November morning in 1942. Having wished for a safe desk job, Billy finds that his police background and family connections have instead landed him in the role of Special Investigator charged with looking into low crimes in high places for his “Uncle Ike”. With one mission already under his belt, Billy finds himself in the vanguard of the first invasion of the war and rapidly entangled in French politics as Allied forces attempt to ready themselves for Rommel’s vaunted Afrika Korps. When corpses begin to appear before the Germans have even appeared, Billy is put on the case to find out if the cause is enemy action, or plain old-fashioned greed. Torn between solving this case and finding the missing Diana Seaton, a British spy held by renegade French fascists, Billy seeks a way to deal with both, hoping that “some Frenchie doesn’t put a bullet in my head before I give the Germans and Italians their chance at it.”
The First Wave is a novel about the ultimate choice that war can force on an individual, and how one man struggles to make that choice an honorable one. Billy Boyle tells his story in his unique voice, a reluctant hero slowly coming to grips the moral and physical minefields of the Second World War.