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.

 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2026

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.

 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2024  

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Misjudged by James Chandler

Misjudged by James Chandler (Severn River Publishing, 2020) is the first book in a new legal thriller series with Sam Johnstone as the lead character. Chandler is the pseudonym of Paul Phillips, a retired career Army officer who now is a circuit court judge in Wyoming. Johnstone is a disabled veteran who loves to fish and who has a great reverence for the law. His untreated PTSD has left him unable to hold steady employment on the East Coast, and he accepts the last-chance offer of an old law school friend to join his small law practice in Custer, Wyoming.

The effects of PTSD on Sam, even years after the precipitating event, are wrenching. When an easel falls over in the courtroom, Sam has a flashback and screams “Incoming!” as he dives under a table, disrupting judicial proceedings. The only place Sam finds peace is fishing alone in the scenic mountain lakes and streams. Sam accepts the help he’s declined for years during the story in a strong effort by the author to show veterans the impact of the hard years of middle Eastern conflict can be reduced.

The town of Custer is a far cry from the law practices of Georgetown in Washington, DC, where Sam has been working. The lawyers in town are often uncomfortably cozy with the two judges who hold sway over the courthouse, and the janitors often know as much about cases being tried as the participants. To get along, lawyers go along, sometimes at the expense of the equitable application of the law. I’ll never trust a small-town lawyer again after reading this book. The degree of wheeling and dealing and under the table arrangements is staggering, especially considering the size of Custer.

The caliber of cases is depressingly mundane. Custer has a severe substance abuse problem and most crimes can be traced to alcohol, prescription drugs, or illegally manufactured ones. Soon after Sam’s arrival, another alcoholic veteran with PTSD is arrested for a particularly gory murder, and Sam feels compelled to take the case to ensure the man is treated fairly. Since a conviction would be convenient for everyone but the defendant, Sam finds himself battling powerful forces. How he prevails is a well-organized and immersive story with memorable characters in an atypical setting for a legal thriller. Highly recommended.

 

·         Publisher: ‎ Severn River Publishing (November 10, 2020)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Hardcover: ‎ 364 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1648750354

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1648750359 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2021

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.