Portland, Maine has gone from the season of ice and
snow in the last novel, Beyond
the Truth, to the season of heat and great humidity in Within
Plain Sight: A Detective Byron Mystery. It is middle of July in 2017 as
the read by Bruce Robert Coffin begins and it is just after 5 in the morning
when Police Detective Sergeant John Byron arrives on scene. As the lead
homicide detective, it will be up to him and his team to identify the murder victim,
identify the killer, and arrest the person or persons who did it. Clearly she
met with foul play and clearly that event happened some unspecified time
earlier at another location. A quick overview of the scene indicates to
Detective Sergeant Byron they have little to go on as forensics are going to
have to provide some avenues of inquiry.
It would really help the case if they also had her
head.
Unfortunately, they only have her body that was
dumped in the weeds of a long since derelict lumberyard. Specifically, the
weeds and dirt inside an open-air drying shed, one of several such sheds and
other decaying structures, on the long since abandoned property. Though it is
not completely abandoned as a roving security guard found the body inside the
fenced lot and called it in to the 911 system. Whether it is the work of a
serial killer known as the “Horseman” who has been active over in the Boston
area, a copycat of some type, or something entirely else is going to take time
to determine. Time they don’t have once the media gets wind of the case and
events begin to escalate in dangerous ways.
The fourth book in the series that started with Among
the Shadows continues to build on that initial police procedural.
While these are billed as mysteries, they only are in the sense that the
criminal or criminals are not known to the reader or the team. These books are
police procedurals and each one builds on the preceding read. Characters
develop and change, even die, in this series as things are not at all static. Politics
and the personal lives of a number of characters are interspersed with the
complex cases, flashes of humor, and plenty of action. Each read is an intense one
that delves deep into police work and the complexities and personal consequences
of doing the job. Such is the case again here in Within Plain Sight: A
Detective Byron Mystery. This book and the entire series are strongly
recommended.
The series and my reviews:
Among
the Shadows: A Detective Byron Mystery
(April 2020)
Beneath
the Depths: A Detective Byron Mystery (May
2020)
Beyond
the Truth: A Detective Byron Mystery (December 2020)
Within Plain Sight: A Detective Byron
Mystery (You Are Here)
Within Plain Sight: A Detective Byron Mystery
Bruce Robert
Coffin
http://www.brucerobertcoffin.com/
Witness Impulse
(HarperCollins Publishers)
February 2020
ISBN# 978-0-06-297134-0
Paperback (also available
in eBook format)
432 Pages
My reading copy was a print edition from the author with no expectation of a review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2020
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