In one aspect, the present invention addresses Layer-3 (L3) connection monitoring between two “multi-attached” host nodes that are interconnected via an intervening communication network having a known network topology. The present invention provides the two-fold benefit of rapid connection failure detection and failure location determination. In one or more embodiments, the present invention “pinpoints” the failure location, improving the intelligence of any triggered failure recovery mechanism and/or providing better, more meaningful failure reporting. A BFD session is established between the local and remote host nodes for each L3 communication path between them, e.g., for each unique pairing of local and remote network attachment points. Upon the occurrence of an L3 connection failure, the pattern of up/down states for these BFD sessions is analyzed, along with knowledge of the involved network topology, to determine the apparent location of the L3 connection failure.