SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER AWARD 2016

Hamburg, 1947.

A ruined city occupied by the British who bombed it, experiencing the coldest winter in living memory. Food is scarce; refugees and the homeless crowd into shanty towns and sheds. There is a killer on the loose, and all attempts to find him or her have failed.

Plagued with worry about his missing son, Frank Stave is a career policeman with a tragedy in his past that is driving his determination to find the killer. With the help of his colleague Maschke from the vice squad, and Lt MacDonald from the British military, Stave has to find out why and who - in the wake of a wave of atrocity, the grim Nazi past and the bleak attempts by his German countrymen to recreate a country from the apocalypse - someone is still dedicated to murder.

The first of a trilogy The Murderer in Ruins is at once evocative, impeccably plotted and beautifully textured, vividly describing a poignant moment in British/German history, with a plot both divinely seamless and riveting. A spine-tingling portrayal of pure evil, with multiple twists, turns and subplots, you'll have no idea, until the final extraordinary denouement, what or who will rise from the ashes.