Ruins of War: A Mason Collins Novel

The debut novel of John A. Connell, author of Spoils of Victory, introducing U.S. Army criminal investigator Mason Collins, set in the chaos of post-World War II Germany.

In the winter of 1945, seven months after the Nazi defeat, Munich is in ruins…

Mason Collins—a former Chicago homicide detective, U.S. soldier, and prisoner of war—is now a U.S. Army criminal investigator in the American Zone of Occupation. It’s his job to enforce the law in a place where order has been obliterated. And his job just became much more dangerous.

A killer is stalking the devastated city—one who has knowledge of human anatomy, enacts mysterious rituals with his prey, and seems to pick victims at random. Relying on his wits and instincts, Mason must venture to places where his own life is put at risk: from interrogation rooms with unrepentant Nazi war criminals to penetrating the U.S. Army’s own black market. 

What Mason doesn’t know is that the killer he’s chasing is stalking him, too…