Bruce Robert Coffin
I think I may have found my new favourite American Crime Fiction series
This is book one of four so far published in the Detective Brock Justice series, and the good news for those that have it, its on kindleunlimited.
Set in a small rural community in the north of the state of Maine, close to the Canadian border, the story uses the countryside and lakes to produce a different type of suspense to that where the story is set in a city.
The isolation of each location, the small town everybody-knows-everybody community. The outdoor activities, including hunting and the use of all terrain vehicles, all add to the tension.
The investigation even starts with the recovery of a man, from beneath a remote site on a frozen lake, who had been handcuffed to a snowmobile.
The characters are just as good. The main protagonist is Detective Brock Justice. Once a city detective he has returned home under a cloud. Transferred from the city to his backwater home town force following a dubious shooting of a criminal during an arrest.
It wasn’t him that was accused of the bad shoot, but he was there, and it was partially his fault for not waiting for backup. But he committed the ultimate crime by testifying against his partner who did fire the fatal shot.
That reputation precedes him to his new post and he is never going to be the most popular man in the small team.
Because of his experience he is appointed lead detective on the case of the body recovered from the lake, and is partnered up with a brand new detective recently promoted from uniform. Chloe Wright may be a rookie detective but she has a brain on her, and despite Brock’s reputation she is keen to learn from him.
There may sound like there’s a lot of cliche character traits here but believe me the story, and the characters, are so well written that that is soon overlooked.
I’d describe this book as a cross between Michael Connelly’s Bosch books and C.J Box’s Joe Picket books.
A great I can highly recommend
Pages: 378. Publisher: Severn River Publishing
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