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Zusatztext “A well-crafted! classic police tale.”—Larry Bond! author of Red Phoenix and Shattered Trident “The best historical crime novel I’ve read all year…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 and Hop Alley Informationen zum Autor John A. Connell is the author of Spoils of Victory and has worked as a cameraman on films such as Jurassic Park and Thelma & Louise and on TV shows including The Practice and NYPD Blue . He now lives with his wife in Paris! France! where he is at work on his third Mason Collins novel. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ONE MUNICH, GERMANY: THE AMERICAN ZONE OF OCCUPATION DECEMBER 1945 Criminal investigator Mason Collins felt as though he were being whisked through the landscape of a bad dream, the charred bones of what had once been Munich passing before him. His driver maneuvered the jeep down the street as if in a road rally, swerving around piles of rubble, horse-drawn wagons, and languid pedestrians. He honked the horn yet again when an elderly couple pushing a wooden cart stacked with their few belongings tried to cross the street at the wrong time. “Dumb-ass krauts,” the driver yelled as they blew past. “Corporal, you know the murder victim is already dead?” Mason said. “Yes, sir.” “Then dial the speed down to somewhere below bat-out-of-hell.” The corporal slowed but purposely veered narrowly by two German ex-soldiers, still dressed in their shredded uniforms, then sent up his middle finger. “ Sieg Heil , motherfuckers!” “I’m only going to say it one more time, Corporal. You will can that crap right now.” “Begging your pardon, sir, but you feel sorry for these people? First they’re saluting Hitler and wanting to take over the world, and now look at ’em.” “Yeah, look at them.” Mason nodded at the pitiful scene before their jeep. People huddled against the biting wind as they shuffled along a street lined with the blackened shells of buildings rising from a graveyard of brick and stone. The heavy gauze of snowfall made them appear as lost souls wandering purgatory, custodians of the dead buried beneath the rubble. Except for the old and the very young, few men moved among them. Women, always women. A line of women extended for blocks, waiting hours in the cold for a Red Cross center to open, hoping to receive a loaf of bread and a few ounces of lard. Others scoured the rubble looking for wood not already burned to fend off the cold. They formed knotted daisy chains salvaging brick and stone from the ruins, inspiring a new German word, Trümmerfrauen , meaning “rubble women.” The corporal was a boy of no more than twenty-one and fresh off the streets of New York City. His name was Sal Manganella, but everyone called him Salamander. A fitting nickname—all nose and chin. He noticed Mason looking at him and hunched his shoulders as if anticipating further rebuke. He relaxed when Mason looked away. “Word is, they offered you a discharge, but you turned them down.” Mason waited a moment before responding. “The army needs experienced cops, so I re-upped.” “Pardon my speaking freely, sir . . .” “That doesn’t seem to be a problem for you.” “Yes, sir . . . What kind of crackpot wants to stay in this hellhole when he could be a cop back in the States?” Mason remained silent. There was no way he was going to get into it with a snot-nosed kid whose only notion of the war was getting drunk and chasing fräuleins. War-torn Germany was a hellhole. The nation had surrendered seven months before, but millions would continue to die. Disease, starvation, and winter’s icy embrace had replaced the bullets and bombs. And murder flourished in the...
