Out of the Ruins bristles with fascinating characters caught in satisfying complications -- a masterpiece of suspense. Georgia's wild, romanticCumberland Island is steeped in family secrets. Hannah Hill, a widow patiently suffering from multiple sclerosis, dies in her large inherited mansion just days after telling her visitor Ben Reese about a disguised nighttime intruder. Treading carefully around questions about mercy and human suffering, Ben pursues a tangle of motives and old mysteries -- euthanasia, arson, poaching, and jealousy between two great island families.