Madness in the Ruins
A Mason Collins Crime Thriller
Previously Entitled Ruins of War
Munich, winter 1945. A killer stalks a city in ruins, and he has chosen his next target: the man hunting him.
Seven months after the Nazi defeat, Munich lies shattered. Mason Collins, former Chicago homicide detective, soldier and prisoner of war, is now an army criminal investigator charged with keeping order where chaos reigns.
Then the bodies start appearing. The killer knows human anatomy, performs strange rituals on his victims and seems to choose them at random. Mason's hunt takes him from interrogation rooms full of unrepentant Nazis to the dark tunnels beneath the rubble.
What he doesn't know is that the killer is stalking him too.
A 2016 Barry Award nominee.
Praise for Madness in the Ruins
Previously Entitled Ruins of War
“A well-crafted, classic police tale set in postwar 1945 Munich, a city that could double as the living room of hell. . . . Mason’s pursuit of the madman takes him though a ruined landscape filled with inhabitants as shattered as the city they live in.”
—Larry Bond, author of Cauldron
“… the best historical crime novel I’ve read all year. As vivid a sense of time and place as anything by Alan Furst, a killer as horrifying as any in Thomas Harris, and a central character I’m sure we’ll be reading about for years to come.”
—Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest
“[A] compelling debut . . . the period details are absorbing.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Connell generates considerable tension. . . . It’s the vividly evoked postwar mood—devastated lives and landscapes combining to create an almost impenetrable fog of gloom—that is the real draw here.”
—Booklist
“Collins ticks all the proper hard-boiled detective boxes. . . . Connell’s definitely writing an old-school detective story, but there’s a healthy dose of The Silence of the Lambs–style serial-killer horror running through his book.”
—Military.com
“A thrilling hunt…gripping and gruesome.”
—James Becker, bestselling author of The Lost Testament
“… a well-crafted, classic police tale set in postwar 1945 Munich, a city that could double as the living room of hell. Mason Collins, a military cop, actually asked to be transferred there, and immediately has to find a killer who is preying on the citizens, adding terror to abject misery. Mason’s pursuit of the madman takes him through a ruined landscape, filled with inhabitants as shattered as the city they live in.”
—Larry Bond, author of Red Phoenix and Shattered Trident.
“A compelling debut…”
—Publishers Weekly
“The complicated Mason, who left the Chicago police force in disgrace, makes for a superb, flawed hero, whose compassion for others is augmented by his own demons. A sequel is mandatory.
—Oline H. Cogdill Sun Sentinel
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