A Bitter Wind

Billy Boyle has barely recovered from the chaos of the Battle of the Bulge when he heads for the southeast coast of England, hoping to spend a quiet Christmas 1944 with his girlfriend, Diana Seaton. Diana is stationed at RAF Hawkinge, where her classified work includes Operation Corona. The program uses German-speaking members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, many of them Jewish refugees who came to Britain on the Kindertransport, to broadcast false orders that pull German night fighters away from Allied bombers.

The work is vital and secretive, and it carries real danger. During a Christmas walk along the White Cliffs of Dover, Billy and Diana come across the body of a US Air Force officer. Papers in his pocket hold highly confidential information, and the question is whether someone was willing to kill to keep it hidden.

Billy, a US Army captain, has to find the answer by learning how radio espionage actually works, from the codebreakers and listeners at the airbase to the secrets they guard. His inquiry eventually carries him from the English coast into war-torn Yugoslavia, where he must reach an escaped prisoner of war who may be the only person who knows what really happened.

A Bitter Wind is a Billy Boyle World War II mystery by James R. Benn, combining a murder investigation with a little-known corner of the wartime intelligence war.