The Murderer in Ruins

CI Frank Stave, Book 1

By: Cay Rademacher

Narrated by: Mark Meadows

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 shantytowns 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 - in the wake of a wave of atrocity, the grim Nazi past and the bleak attempts by his German countrymen to re-create a country from the apocalypse - someone is still dedicated to murder.

A spine-tingling portrayal of pure evil, with multiple twists, turns and subplots. What, or who, will rise from the ashes?

©2015 Cay Rademacher (P)2017 Audible, Ltd

Strong historical procedural

This story totally nails the time and place. I felt like I was there in 1947 Hamburg. Plot and characters were more predictable.

Decent plot

The books plot is a little mundane and doesn’t develop the characters as much as I would like but it does give an atmospheric post war sense of life in a bombed out city. Worth the time spent.

A Great Find!

I'm always happy to find a new murder mystery series and CI Frank Stave books are a welcome addition. It does run a bit long in places, but I will chalk that up to character development. The writer also gives a great description of the what life was like in post-WWII Germany. There are a lot of twists and turns for the listener to enjoy. I've added Book 2 of the series to my wish list and am looking forward to enjoying it.

A wonderful new find

Would you listen to The Murderer in Ruins again? Why?

So happy i found this book. Listened to it and immediately bought the new one, The Wolf Children. Please Audible, buy the English translations of the rest of the author's books.

The story was compelling but what i loved the most is having the story set in a time and place that i knew little about, namely early post WWII Germany.

I am hooked. And i don't often take time to write a review.

What did you like best about this story?

The setting.

What does Mark Meadows bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He didn't get in the way of the story.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Wasn't sure at first, but...

Intellectually, I was aware of the fact that after the German surrender the situation in Europe did not return to peace and prosperity immediately. However, I feel this story did quite a lot to help me understand how things were for a while afterwards. Author totally succeeds at bringing us into a world of devastation and (gradual) renewal.

Stave proves an incredibly likeable main character; I found myself immediately invested in his success. The secondary characters were also quite well done, although there were a couple that I wasn't as "into" as I suspect I should've been. Overall, they worked well, another success on that front.

Finally, we come to the plot itself, which left me with doubts as to whether I be interested in a sequel, up until the end. The story did come together for me so that I'd be interested in that, but to be honest at times that aspect felt as though it was secondary to a character-and-setting driven story. ("Where is all this going?")

Audio narration and translation are top-notch. If you feel this sounds interesting, you'd probably like it.

Very entertaining

What a pleasant surprise! A great book with an interesting lead character and a unique setting for a police procedural - Hamburg after WW2.

The narrator was also fantastic.