Kevin's Corner: Bruce Robert Coffin

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Friday, August 07, 2026

Review: Dark Harbor: A Detective Justice Novel by Bruce Robert Coffin

Dark Harbor: A Detective Justice Novel by Bruce Robert Coffin is the latest read in an excellent police procedural series that began with Crimson Thaw. As always, it is best to read in order though one could start here if you really wanted to do so.

Granville Warren III is wealthy and one of those guys who has to make sure everyone knows he has the best of everything. He has the best house, the best car, the best boat, and certainly the best wife. The former Lily Marshall is his third wife and is far younger and very beautiful. After a day of sailing, they have returned to their mansion in Maine and are planning on going out to dinner.

That plan died, along with Granville Warren III, within minutes of their arrival home thanks to the intruders in the mansion. He died, as did one of the intruders, and that is the latest case for Maine State Police Detective Brock Justice and his partner, Detective Chole Wright, and the rest of their team.

According to the wife who was found by local responding police officers wearing a bloody bathrobe and holding a gun, she shot and killed the intruder after he had shot her husband. The Warren’s were very wealthy and the local power brokers in the community. Everyone knew them and often had jobs because of them or some other very strong connection. That includes the local police chief who was very tight with them as the couple routinely donated funds and equipment to the local small department.

That local dynamic makes the investigation more difficult. One of several difficulties that will rear their ugly heads in Dark Harbor: A Detective Justice Novel.

This is a great police procedural series. Led by the main character, Brock Justice, and numerous returning secondary characters, the read is complicated and a real page turning pleasure to read. Every book gives a little more on the background of Justice and others and this one is no exception.

Highly recommended, as is the entire series. This read and the others are available on Kindle Unlimited.

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Amazon Associate Series Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4bfNpTR

My digital ARC came directly from the publisher, Severn River Publishing, with no expectation of a positive review.

Thursday, January 08, 2026

Review: Bitter Fall: A Detective Justice Novel by Bruce Robert Coffin

Comes out next Tuesday...

It is October as Bitter Fall: A Detective Justice Novel by Bruce Robert Coffin begins. It is just after midnight on a desolate stretch of Maine roadway. Red and blue strobe lights from various emergency vehicles as well as portable floodlights keep the darkness at bay. For Maine State Police Detectives Brock Justice and Chloe Wright, what was already along day is about to get way longer.

A woman is dead in the roadway. Nearby, a dark SUV is on its crumpled roof with the front end of the vehicle smashed up against a huge pine tree. While the scene looks like the typical car versus pedestrian type situation, it isn’t. Homicide Detectives from the Major Crimes Unit North out of the Troop E barracks in Bangor are not called out to investigate fatal motor vehicle accidents.

They were told to make the ninety-minute drive, one way, not simply because Summer Randall is dead in the road. There is no doubt that the vehicle hit her. She is dressed in running clothes and may have come off of any number of nearby trails before being struck in the roadway. But the drunk driver, Jonathan Watters, probably did not kill her.

What killed her, in all likelihood, was a stab wound into her stomach. Dr. Ginny Waite from the medical examiner’s office believes she was stabbed some time shortly before she was hit by the car. That she was bleeding heavily internally and her body was failing her before she made it out on the roadway to be hit by the impaired driver. The discovery of a blood trail in the nearby woods means the medical examiner was right.

Meanwhile, Greenville, Maine, has a population of approximately 1400 people. That means the victim is well known among the locals. So too is her ex-boyfriend. He could be their prime suspect, but at the same time, other people also had reason to kill.

What follows is a complicated case full of twists, turns, and dead ends. It isn’t the only case Detective Justice is working either as he is continuing to pursue his suspicions about his exonerated former partner.

Building on the events of Crimson Thaw, Bitter Fall powers along at a steady pace that tightly holds the attention of the reader. Character building continues here at a slower pace as the main focus is investigating and solving cases.

A main aspect also seems to be aimed squarely at making the reader hungry for massive sized cinnamon buns.

A mighty good read in what is a very good series. The third book in the series, Dark Harbor, is currently scheduled to be released in August. One hopes that might be moved to a sooner date.

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4j71YvJ

Published by Severn River Publishing, my digital ARC came direct from the author with no expectation of a review.

Monday, December 22, 2025

Jim Nesbitt Reviews: The Iceman Cometh

Saturday, December 20, 2025

The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog: SMFS Spotlight: Bruce Robert Coffin

The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog: SMFS Spotlight: Bruce Robert Coffin: Short Mystery Fiction Society member Elena Smith has graciously offered to conduct interviews spotlighting members of the Society. Here is ...

Tuesday, November 04, 2025

Publication Day Review: Crimson Thaw: A Detective Justice Novel by Bruce Robert Coffin

I have long been a fan of police procedurals by Bruce Robert Coffin. His latest, Crimson Thaw: A Detective Justice Novel, takes readers to Maine where Detective Justice is going through some things because he stood up for what was right.

Maine State Police Detective Brock Justice, and his partner, Evan Mathers, should have waited for backup to take down Terrance “Terry” Kirke. But, backup was delayed so they went in on their own. Things went horribly wrong and both are dealing with the repercussions of that event.

Detective Brock Justice has transferred to a new station far to the north of where he had been working before now. He’s in Bangor, Maine, newly divorced, and a pariah to most of his fellow state troopers. His new boss, Lieutenant Penelope Cumberland, is less than thrilled to have him in her command and makes that fact clear from their very first meeting.

Warned to toe the line and do things by the book, she sends him out on his first case. He will partner with a detective who has investigator experience, but not working homicides, Chloe Wright. The scene is about an hour away at a body of water known as “Second Pond” located near the town of Blue Hill.

He arrives in time to see a snowmobile float to the surface with considerable assistance by the dive team. A dive team that includes his new partner, Chloe Wright. It isn’t uncommon to find bodies in or near various vehicles as lakes and ponds thaw in the spring. Usually, liquor is involved, and people got intoxicated and stupid, and died as a result. It can take awhile and consistent warmer weather to recover the bodies.

This one is very different form the normal death by drunken misadventure as the body is handcuffed to the snowmobile. Along with teaching Chloe various tricks of being a homicide detective as this is her first homicide case, it becomes clear they have a literal cold case on their hands in more ways than one. Not in terms of years, but in terms of the body having been submerged since sometime in the winter as well as the identity of the victim. Their first clue is the fact that the snowmobile is incredibly expensive.

What follows is a complex police procedural as the author sets the foundation stone for a new series while providing a case full of twists and turns. The tentacles of the past reach deep into the present and weave a complex tapestry of crime and deceit as a back drop to the murder.

Simply put, Crimson Thaw: A Detective Justice Novel is a mighty good read and very much worth your time. Strongly recommended.

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4gYywGZ

My reading copy came from the author with no expectation of a review.

Friday, September 26, 2025

FFB Review: Within Plain Sight: A Detective Byron Mystery by Bruce Robert Coffin

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.

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3VUsjCB

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

Friday, September 19, 2025

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.

Friday, September 12, 2025

FFB Review: Beneath The Depths: A Detective Bryon Mystery by Bruce Robert Coffin

From the archives…

It is late April 2016 when Beneath The Depths: A Detective Bryon Mystery by Bruce Robert Coffin opens and attorney Paul Ramsey is soon dead. The prominent local attorney, just hours after losing a very high profile multi million dollar trial, has been fished out of Casco Bay after being found by a local lobsterman in the hours before dawn as he worked his traps. It is a cool morning in Portland, Maine, but the day will heat up fast in more ways than one.

Portland Police Detective Sergeant John Byron and his partner, Detective Diana Joyner, are first on the case. Sergeant Bryon has good cause not to care for the flamboyant attorney, but that no longer matters. With the man dead, he is a victim and deserves the full efforts of everyone on the case. It does not take long before it is clear that this was no accident and was, in fact, a murder. The suspect pool is massive and seems to grow larger by the hour.

Beneath The Depths: A Detective Bryon Mystery is the second book in the series that began so well in Among The Shadows. Numerous plotlines, several involving the personal lives of Bryon and members of his team, continue here and serve as background to the main plotline as noted above. This is a series that is not static. In this series, people age, situations and characters evolve, and time relentlessly moves forward. The foundation for the series was laid in the first book and here the building of what promises to be a complex and entertaining series continues.

Like Among The Shadows, this second book, Beneath The Depths: A Detective Bryon Mystery, is a very good and strongly recommended. If it is not clear already, this is a series that needs to be read in order to be fully appreciated and enjoyed.

Amazon Associates Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3VcBq0V

I recently received a print copy of this book, as well as the next two, from the author with no expectation of a review.

Friday, September 05, 2025

Friday's Forgotten Books: Among the Shadows: A Detective Bryon Mystery by Bruce Robert Coffin

Anyone who knows me knows I am very much into police procedurals. If life had gone just slightly different, I would have been a cop. Dipping into the archive once again to remind you today of this first book in a very good police procedural series…

Among the Shadows: A Detective Bryon Mystery by Bruce Robert Coffin is the first book in a police procedural series. Set in Portland, Maine, and the surrounding area, it features Detective Sergeant John Bryon and his team of detectives. Internal politics and rivalries play a role in this complicated police procedural where former officers are dying a variety of ways.

Detective Sergeant John Byron is your classic hard-working detective who drinks a lot, has a failing marriage, can’t get along with the bosses, and has a slowly building attraction to his female partner. He is also a very good detective and does not know how to back off in his search for the truth.

He is called out in this far too warm September morning to the house of Mr. James O’Halloran. At least he is missing the weekly time wasting CompStat meeting that does nothing to suppress crime, but does give the bosses an illusion that they are doing something and practicing effective leadership while chewing out those under them. Mr. James O’Halloran was under hospice care thanks to terminal bone and lung cancer, so his death is not a surprise. However, as the body is examined in place in the home, it quickly becomes clear that this was no suicide or natural caused death. Somebody decided to speed up the process by forcefully applying a pillow over his face and suffocating him. His current nurse is on the short list of possible suspects, but nobody seems to be likely including her and she found the body.

Then a second retired former officer is also killed, and Detective Sergeant John Bryon realizes that something far more sinister is going on. Something that may also link back to his own father’s time on the job decades ago and sudden death.

This is a classic police procedural that uses many of the tropes familiar to readers and yet manages to twist them in ways that create a highly entertaining read. Politics and rivalries serve as the backdrop to an increasingly violent murder investigation that puts Bryon as well as many members of his detective team at substantial risk. A solidly good read well worth your time, Among the Shadows: A Detective Bryon Mystery by Bruce Robert Coffin is recommended.

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/45MaHym

My reading copy came by way of the Skillman Southwestern Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Review: The Cardinal's Curse: The Turner and Mosley Files Book 2 by Lyndee Walker and Bruce Robert Coffin

I’m late with this one thanks to the spate of new falls as well as the diagnosis last week of my left ear infection of the drum and the ear canal. Who does that? This guy! I had no idea one could get the ear canal itself infected. Wish the meds would hurry up and do something. Anyway, this came out back over a month ago, so I am very late with my spoiler free review.

Back in November 1537, Cardinal Olav Engelbrektsson had a gold crown encrusted with jewels and other important treasures. He was the Archbishop of Nidaros and had ruled Norway due to the lack of a king and the black death. He has been in exile and hiding these past seven months as Christian III became king of Denmark and claimed Norway as a dependency. Cardinal Engelbrektsson plans to seize power again. The first part of that is for the crown and other treasures to be loaded aboard the wagons so that he and his group can move out on their journey back to power.

In the present day as The Cardinal’s Curse begins, Avery Turner and Carter Mosley are deep in the cold waters of Hudson Bay. She has a new dive computer, TreaureTech’s DiveNav, that she designed and created, strapped to her wrist. They are diving to find the wreck of the yacht, Moneymaker. The long missing yacht may hold the body of Broadway showgirl, Melody Fisher, and the NYPD, and others need it found. But, first, the new tech on her wrist needs to work and it clearly has a glitch that is making things even more dangerous.

Those cold waters are just a taste of what awaits them in the Antarctic. Dr. Noah Wyndham is leading an expedition to find the legendary lost ship, Fortitude. While the sunken ship is probably well preserved due to the incredibly cold waters, those same cold waters make any dive to it very dangerous. That assumes they can even get to it because of the depth of the wreck, the Antarctic environment, and a lot of other factors.

The expedition is already deep into Antarctica and has been hard at work for several months with little to no success. The expedition is twofold--one is climate research as they seek a way to artificially rebuild the Antarctic shelf ice as a way to fight the well documented climate change problem. The secondary research project and the one Dr. Wyndham wants Carter, Turner, Harrison, for is to help find the Fortitude. Dr. Wyndham hopes that, by finding the Fortitude, the massive media attention of their discovery, will bring additional funding to continue their shelf ice research. Funds are running out and winter is coming. They have only days left to find the Fortitude before winter descends and they need help now.

Avery Carter and Turner Mosely are enthusiastic about joining the expedition. Harrison has grave reservations about all of it, but goes along with the others in the quest to find the Fortitude. Much like an iceberg, what they know going in, is just the tip of a huge and dangerous iceberg.

Book two of the of the Turner and Mosely Files that began with The General’s Gold is another fun filled action read. Along with plenty of history and science, there is a lot of action at the ends of the earth where survival can be measured in seconds.

The Cardinal’s Curse is another solidly good read and well worth your time. Like any good series, this builds on the first book, so I recommend you read that one first before embarking here. The third book in the series, The Pirate's Secret, is currently scheduled to be released October 29^th.

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3LnV7Oy

Both the publisher, Severn River Publishing, by way of NetGalley, as well as author Bruce Robert Coffin supplied ARCs for my use. In neither case was there any expectation of a review.

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Review: The General's Gold: The Turner and Mosley Files Book 1 by Lyndee Walker and Bruce Robert Coffin

The General’s Gold by Lyndee Walker and Bruce Robert Coffin is billed as the first book of The Turner and Mosley Files. It is a read that is very reminiscent of early Clive Cussler books. We have shipwrecks, a hunt for treasure, and a plot by bad actors to get the loot first. It is also a fun and good read.

It begins down in the Florida Keys with Avery Turner. Young, recently rich thanks to the sale of her app to a tech company, she is a bit bored with her life. She likes being independently wealthy as well as her new home on an island in the Keys. But, something is missing. She is a bit bored.

She has recently taken up scuba diving and Carter Mosley is teaching her how to go about things safely. His passion is diving to shipwrecks, mainly modern-day commercial vessels. That has resulted in a growing social media platform. Like Avery, his efforts are attracting attention from the wealthy in his industry, and he has opportunities as well as obstacles to manage. He is also a bit of an adventurer and is one of those folks who likes jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.

As part of her scuba training, Carter takes her down to the first wreck he ever dived, and the one that made him famous, Isabella’s Dream. The sunken freighter will be good training dive for her and it was.

She had a blast, but reality crashed in once they got back to the surface. A detective in Boston calls with the news that Mark Hawkins, friend, business partner, and more, is suddenly dead. Boston PD is treating it as a drug overdose.

She knows better and is soon on her private plane, along with her assistant, Harrison, as she wants to see the crime scene herself. Fortunately, Harrison worked with her mom long ago on the job and can make calls to help smooth the way.

At same time, Carter goes about his life in the Keys, aware that he is being watched. Who is watching him and why are two questions he can not answer.

Before long, both are involved in escalating situations. All events lead to a ship that went down during the civil war. It may have been filled with a treasure that would have financed the south after victory. Who knows what it could finance today?

What follows is a read that moves up and down the east coast in a hunt for the lost ship and its cargo. Multiple secondary story lines are also at work giving additional character depth as well as obstacles. The result is a complicated fast-moving adventure read that fully engages the reader. The General’s Gold is a mighty good read and well worth your time.

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3TZ9xtt

Both the publisher, Severn River Publishing, by way of NetGalley, as well as author Bruce Robert Coffin supplied ARCs for my use. In neither case was there any expectation of a review.

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