In love and War

In "Ruins of War," World War II history and a tormented serial killer combine for a satisfying and intelligent read.

Mason Collins is a former Chicago homicide detective who was fired from his job, allegedly, for accepting kickbacks.

He's assigned to Munich, Germany CID in 1945. The city is divided into military segments after the end of the war. Collins's first assignment is to view the victim of a murderer.  The action ratchets up as Collins gets an investigation unit working on the case and the killer selects his next victim.

There's a snag when Collins' boss would rather go after a gang that was partially made up of U.S. deserters and there was a connection to the U.S. while the killer had murdered a victim who was initially unidentified.

What particularly drew me to the story was the World War II setting and the vivid descriptions of Munich with bombed out buildings, multitudes of orphans, and many displaced persons. These DP's came from people who were freed from concentration camps, German and U.S. deserters, soldiers who came from counties where they were forced to fight for Germany such as Czechoslovakia and general criminals.

Mason shows his tenderness in helping to feed orphans and in his desire to do justice and find the killer - at all costs and the reader relates to him and hopes for his success.

The excellent descriptions of primary and secondary characters was another entertaining element to the story. The suspenseful story had me turning pages late into the night.

Recommended.