Maine Sunday Telegram #1 Bestseller * Winner of the Silver Falchion Award for Best Procedural * Agatha Award Nominee for Best Contemporary Novel * Maine Literary Award Nominee for Best Crime Fiction“A gripping atmospheric thriller that finds the dark side of Portland, Maine. The Detective Byron mystery series is one of the finest to arrive in a long time.” —#1 New York Times bestselling author … arrive in a long time.” —#1 New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston
In this latest enthralling mystery from #1 bestselling author Bruce Robert Coffin, Detective Sergeant John Byron faces the greatest challenge of his career.
When a popular high school senior is shot by police following a late night robbery, chaos ensues. The actions of the officer are immediately called into question. Amid community protests, political grandstanding, department leaks, and reluctant witnesses, Byron and his team must work quickly to find the missing pieces.
And when an attempt is made on the officer’s life, Byron shifts into overdrive, putting everything on the line. Was the attack merely retribution or something more sinister? The search for the truth may come at a price not even Byron can afford.
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When a popular high school senior is shot by police following a late night robbery, chaos ensues. The actions of the officer are immediately called into question. Amid community protests, political grandstanding, department leaks, and reluctant witnesses, Byron and his team must work quickly to find the missing pieces. Written by a retired police detective sergeant, Bruce Robert Coffin knows the world he is writing about intimately. The result is thrilling, gut-wrenching, and timely, Beyond the Truth, is the one fall release you won’t be able to stop reading-Kate Flora
Beyond the Truth is the third book in Bruce Coffin’s Detective John Byron series. This work will grab you right from the start. Police officer Haggerty has been following two young men after an armed robbery. He shoots one of the young men and the other escapes. The young man shot turns out to be a popular high school athlete and things begin to get out of control with politicians grandstanding and people calling for an independent investigation. Detective John Byron is on the case, trying to keep a lid on things and working fast before things get really crazy. An excellent tale that reads more real-life than fiction. I loved it!
“Beyond the Truth” delves into the intricate and difficult task of being a policeman. Split second decisions lead to life-altering events, while stress and long hours brand the men and woman of blue with a deep imprint of anguish. Coffin’s protagonist, Detective Byron, must wade through the details of a police shooting and killing of a seventeen-year-old, who may have just robbed a laundromat, or possibly it was involving drugs? Byron strives to clear the officer of the shooting when no weapon is found, but office politics weigh in with their heavy hand, and hints of organized crime begin to swirl in upon the wind. Will public opinion win out that the shoot was unjustified? Will Byron give in to the urge to visit the brown liquor? Will his relationship with his former partner and now lover follow the path of his ex-wife? This is a dizzy thrill ride with unexpected twists and turns that will keep you up late into the night waiting to find out what happens Beyond the Truth.
“Gripping” is the best word to describe this novel, if I only had to choose one. Beyond the Truth is a police procedural so exquisitely written that I felt like I was living inside the characters’ heads, hearing their thoughts, seeing through their eyes, while the case unfolds. The story opens when a Portland Maine police officer, working a Sunday night patrol shift, is called to an armed robbery. From page one, the story is off and running as Detective Sargant John Byron tries to sort truth from lies and right from wrong, driven by a primal need to serve justice. More words that describe this work: gritty, realistic, riveting, page-turner.
The Detective Byron series continues to expand the appeal of the police procedural. The author has a unique ability to humanize those behind the badge without romanticizing the work, lionizing law enforcement, or caricaturing the citizenry. In turns gritty and poignant, pulse-pounding and soul-searing, you don’t have to be a connoisseur of the subgenre to get hooked on this series.
Beyond the Truth is in many ways a story “ripped from the headlines”: a fictional account of a police-involved shooting and its aftermath that feels as real as anything you might see on the nightly news. Coffin’s nearly three decades in law enforcement thrusts the immediacy of the job and its perils–physical and psychological, moral and ethical–into your hands. Good luck trying to put it down at a reasonable bedtime.
Bruce Robert Coffin’s BEYOND THE TRUTH is a gritty and relentless tale of Detective Sergeant John Byron and his squad of Portland, Maine police investigators on the trail of truth about one of their own — Officer Sean Haggerty, who in the pursuit of two robbers shoots one while the other gets away.
The dead robber turns out to be a high school student and star basketball player. Haggerty thought he saw the muzzle flash of a gun before he fired. No gun is found on the scene and the second robber has disappeared like a ghost.
This sets the stage for a pressure-packed case that cranks up a media frenzy, angry protesters and nasty political infighting within the department and with a mayor determined to score points at police expense to further her political career.
At first, all signs point to bad shoot, which will ruin Haggerty’s career and leave an indelible black mark on the department. But Byron is a grinder who doggedly pushes his squad to dig deeper to find the hidden truth — be it the missing gun and second robber or confirmation that Haggerty shot an unarmed teenager. To lead his squad, Byron must compartmentalize his friendship with Haggerty and his duty to get to the bottom of this case. That’s just the first of many turns of the screw on Byron’s emotions.
It gets worse. An FBI agent lets Byron know that Haggerty, who is also the high school’s resource officer, is a suspect in an ongoing bureau drug case. All leads continue to lead to nowhere. The public’s fury builds. Then Haggerty is shot in a drive-by hit ordered up by convict doing time in the state pen — a bad hombre Haggerty put behind bars.
Although Coffin’s latest book is labeled a police procedural, at heart it is a mystery told from the cop’s point of view. The author is a former detective who uses his experience to tell a realistic tale of a high-profile police investigation — without histrionics, but with the unstoppable momentum of a freight train.
There’s plenty of action and knowing details about political infighting and the emotional toll paid by the officers investigating this case. But to find out the meaning of the title, you’re going to have to pick up a copy of Coffin’s latest. You won’t be disappointed and you’ll probably buy his other books.
Very excellent if you are a fan of today’s reality. Lots of shooting and other gang like behaviors. Police trying to keep the public safe, in spite of the stupidity happening.