Blame the Dead by Ed Ruggero
“‘We’ve got a waver,’ Lieutenant Eddie Harkins said when he spotted the GI up ahead.” So opens Ed Ruggero’s blistering thriller Blame the Dead (Forge). With that, it stakes a rightful claim as one of the best World War II-based stories in years. But little does Harkins know at that point that such a simple hand gesture from the side of the road could embroil this former Philadelphia street cop and current military policeman in a murder investigation that threatens his very life and soul.
The action evolves away from the battlefield at an army field hospital based in 1943 Sicily. That, of course, turns out to be only the tip of the iceberg. A conspiracy and cover-up are afoot, and only by rooting out the ringleaders and perpetrators can Harkins restore honor not just to a single hospital, but also the Allied cause. But he’s got his own demons to deal with and solving a murder isn’t exactly what he signed up for.
“Back home he had a reputation as a hothead, a stereotypical Irish street tough, fists up, touchy about any insult.” In other words, Harkins is the wrong man for the job. Or, alternatively, maybe a streetwise cop is actually what’s needed to sort through the political and military morass he encounters along the way. The barriers thrown up in his investigation at every juncture only increase his determination to find the truth — he clings to the process for respite.
ALL YOUR FAVORITE WAR AUTHORS ROLLED INTO ONE
Blame the Dead takes on a procedural element reminiscent of Michael Connelly in tone and texture. Ruggero’s cast of characters range from evasive to duplicitous, seemingly determined to slow or stall Harkins’s efforts every step of the way, which the commanding officer considers “slapdash and even harmful to his command.”
The novel compares favorably to Nelson DeMille’s war-themed, pop culture thrillers like Word of Honor and The General’s Daughter, as well as Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War. Like O’Brien and Caputo, Ruggero inherently focuses on the preservation of dignity amid a landscape that defies it, finding honor in an ignoble world and forging rays of hope that cut through the darkness.
“There were ways to make a minuscule contribution to—what? Order? The law? Some idea of what was wright and what was still, even amid the hatred and destruction, wrong?” This stellar effort reminded me even more of Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War, and the brilliant James Jones’s trilogy including the classic From Here to Eternity. A riveting, relentless stunner of a tale that’s pitch perfect.
For more on Ed Ruggero, please visit his website.
