FFB Review: Beyond the Truth: A Detective Byron Mystery by Bruce Robert Coffin

  

It is the middle of January as Beyond the Truth: A Detective Byron Mystery by Bruce Robert Coffin begins. As expected Portland, Maine, is bitterly cold and there is ice and snow the ground with a major snowstorm on the way. That snowstorm is going to make things even more complicated when investigating an officer involved shooting.

 

 

That shooting by veteran officer Sean Haggerty is going to have tragic and far reaching repercussions. Not just because Detective Byron and his team of investigators can’t find the weapon that Haggerty saw the muzzle flash emanate from so he fired back. Not only did a white police officer kill a black teenager, Thomas Plummer, who was a high school star athlete and was going places, nobody seems to know why he would have been involved in a crime. What he was doing in an armed robbery, nobody knows, and nobody has any idea who his robbery partner was that night his life abruptly ended.

 

As the hours pass and the weapon remains missing, the rage among some in the community builds stoked by outside agitators and those who believe this is just the latest in criminal police shootings. Soon, increasingly violent protests erupt, threats against the involved officer are made, and the politicians do what they always do in such circumstances. Meanwhile, Officer Haggerty has to deal with the personal and the professional repercussions. At the same time as he tries to help an officer he cares deeply about, Detective Byron deals with trying to find the weapon and a lot more in this intense read.

 

 

Third in the series that began with Among the Shadows and was followed by Beneath the Depths, Beyond the Truth: A Detective Bryon Mystery by Bruce Robert Coffin is another compelling read. Characters and relationships continue to evolve as does the world around them. Prior events continue to make their impact in the here and now of this complicated third book. This is not a static series and therefore should be read in order.

 

 

Beyond the Truth: A Detective Bryon Mystery by Bruce Robert Coffin is strongly recommended.

 

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/46Ji5uH

 

 

 

My reading copy was a print edition from the author with no expectation of a review.

 

 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2020, 2025