Ruins of War

Connell’s compelling debut, a serial killer thriller set in post-WWII Munich, introduces Mason Collins, an officer in the American army. A former Chicago homicide cop who was kicked off the force for alleged corruption, Mason was captured at the Battle of Bulge and briefly held at Buchenwald before entering a POW camp. Seven months after the Nazi surrender, Mason is now serving in the Army’s criminal investigation division in Germany. Death—from illness, starvation, and the cold—is rampant. Others die from unnatural causes, like the unidentified man whose torso was eviscerated and limbs severed and removed. The murder seems even more savage after an autopsy shows that the mutilations were not postmortem. Mason’s overworked commanding officer doesn’t want him pursuing a homicide case that’s likely a German-on-German crime with no leads. But the detective’s suspicions that the killer isn’t done leads him to risk his career to catch him. The payoff isn’t quite at the level of the setup, but the period details are absorbing. Agent: Matt Bialer, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (May)