The Ruins

“Wick’s debut novel has potent themes: baseball, Nazis, PTSD, and the suburban construction boom of the 1950s. Lindenhurst, New York’s Police Chief Paul Beirne is haunted by memories of World War II when he was held in a Japanese POW camp. When a mutilated body is discovered in the Long Island town, Beirne senses that evil is thriving as the suburbs sprawl. Wick is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, and Long Island is his beat. In The Ruins, the reader is in expert hands.” – Oprah Daily, A Best Thriller of 2025“After four nonfiction books and a career in journalism, Steve Wick has turned to fiction. His interests in Long Island history and World War II remain at center stage in The Ruins. Wick has built his narrative around a core of carefully researched real events, particularly the Lindbergh kidnapping, and the theory that not only was the executed man innocent, but that Lindbergh himself participated in the scheme.” – Newsday“Veteran journalist Wick’s first novel uses a horrific murder in a quiet Long Island village to rip the lid off a series of outrages, fictional and not, in the past. Readers will appreciate Wick’s explosive plotting and extensive historical research. A shattering journey from Lindenhurst to Lindbergh.” – Kirkus Reviews“In the debut novel from biographer Wick (The Long Night), former POW Paul Beirne unearths an insidious conspiracy on Long Island. The action in The Ruins brims with fascinating insight about the Nazis’ presence in the U.S. and the shifting cultural climate of the 1950s.” – Publishers Weekly“Veteran investigative reporter Steve Wick’s fiction debut explodes with ripped from recent headlines about icons and ignored American history that will blow your mind. This multi-leveled, multi-generational crime and espionage story keeps readers guessing right up until the final pages and leaves them with fresh questions about how we all got here.” * James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor and The Smoke in Our Eyes *Praise for Steve Wick “It’s this Shirer—the human being, a man of determination and steely nerve—that Mr. Wick gets onto the pages of his book.” – Dwight Garner * The New York Times *“The Long Night is indeed an adventure story. A fast-paced narrative drive. But Mr. Wick has documented the story with scrupulous attention to detail.” * The Wall Street Journal *“Wick offers an absorbing and very detailed account, the perfect companion piece to Shirer’s masterwork.” * Publishers Weekly *“Wick knows how to tell a good story.” * The New Republic *“Thorough, fast-paced, and absorbing.” * World War II Magazine *

Steve Wick is a Long Island journalist and the author of three non-fiction books, including The Long Night, about the journalist William L. Shirer. He has won dozens of reporting and writing awards and shared in Newsday’s Pulitzer Prize for Spot News reporting for the newspaper’s coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.

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