Blame the Dead

Starred review from February 3, 2020
At the start of this exceptional WWII mystery and series launch from Ruggero (The Academy), Lt. Eddie Harkins, an MP who was once a Philadelphia beat cop, comes across a murder scene near Palermo, Sicily. In the confusion of a German air raid at dawn that August 1943 morning, someone shot Capt. Meyers Stephenson, a surgeon, in the back of the head at close range. Harkins, who gets assigned to oversee the murder investigation, soon learns that Stephenson had plenty of enemies in the army hospital where he’d been working, including members of the nursing staff whom he routinely sexually harassed. Stephenson was also suspected of killing a nurse who supposedly choked to death on her own vomit after getting drunk with him. Harkins’s determination to find justice for the dead man and expose the horrific treatment of the nurses places him at odds with the hospital’s commander. Ruggero plays fair with his readers and makes the carrying out of a homicide inquiry in wartime both exciting and plausible. Fans of James Benn and Owen Parry will be pleased. Agent: Matt Bialer, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc.

January 31, 2020

Ruggero (The First Men In: U.S. Paratroopers and the Fight To Save D-Day) returns to fiction with this World War II mystery. Allied Forces have invaded Sicily and operating just behind the battle lines is the 11th Field Hospital. There, during a scramble caused by an air raid siren, someone shoots Dr. Myers Stephenson in the head. Eddie Harkins, military police lieutenant and a former Philadelphia beat cop, is the first on the scene. With no detective experience, Harkins feels woefully unqualified to solve the case, but he's the hospital's only hope. It's revealed that Stephenson was sexually assaulting female nurses, and the hospital commander, who knew about the attacks and did nothing to stop them, soon begins transferring key witnesses and otherwise disrupting the investigation. Ruggero uses his military expertise to create a vivid and unconventional setting for a murder mystery, crafting an intriguing quagmire of institutional corruption to challenge his everyman hero. Harkins, however, as a series lead, is a bit of a bore, and the plot trudges along at a mechanical pace that lacks urgency. VERDICT A promising but ultimately uneven start to a new World War II mystery series.--Andy Northrup, Eugene P.L., OR

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2019
Eddie Harkins, a U.S. Army MP in Sicily during WWII, is on his way back to his unit when he lands in a murder investigation. A surgeon in the 11th Army's field hospital has been shot while running for cover during a German bombing. Although he has no experience as a detective, Eddie is charged with finding the killer. The victim, Captain Myers Stephenson, was despised by all the nurses, thanks to his continual sexual harassment, possibly including rape, but the good-old-boy network of fellow surgeons, including the CO, leaves the nurses powerless to get anywhere with a formal complaint. With the help of one nurse, Kathleen Donnelly, whom Eddie knew back home in Philadelphia, the former beat cop gradually develops some investigative skills, tracking the trail of Stephenson's wrongdoing from sexual crimes to theft and possibly the enabling of a German spy. Despite a premise that is almost identical to that of James R. Benn's Billy Boyle series?inexperienced cop turned army investigator?Ruggero's story sets itself apart with the vividly rendered field-hospital setting and the focus on the battle-hardened nurses. A solid choice for WWII-thriller fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)