Great book!7 s Edwin HillAuthor 6 books691

The second installment in this series picks up a few months after the last book, and delves into the murder of a prominent attorney in Portland, ME. The plotting in this book is excellent. I also appreciated how the lives of the supporting characters were explored even more. 5 s Joan3,861 89

I a good police procedure novel and Coffin is one of my favorite authors in that genre. His nearly thirty years in law enforcement shows. This novel is a good combination of character development and investigative technique. There is also a good balance of action and scene description.

I that his detectives come across as real people, flawed but dedicated to their work. Byron is a good lead character. Many of his thoughts about the case, his work, and his personal life are included. That helped give depth to his character. It also revealed his struggle to continue the investigation when it became politically incorrect. He had to battle superiors who gave greater importance to protecting benefactors than solving the case.

This novel journeys through the darker side of Portland, Maine. It reveals some of the nastiness of a high power legal firm in the city. We are taken to some of the strip joints too and get a glimpse of the lives of some of the women working in them.

I recommend this novel to those who a good combination of character development, scene description, and police investigative procedure. Readers who the Harry Bosch series, I do, will enjoy this John Byron series.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.4 s Cathy71

A relentlessly aggressive lawyer loses a major eight-figure case for the first time, and doesn’t make it through the night. His body is found caught on something deep beneath the waves next to a lobster boat hauling traps in Casco Bay off the shores of Portland, Maine.

Nobody d him, everybody hated him, and now he has a .380 bullet hole in his forehead. So many potential suspects!

The plot twists and snaps around a flag in a rough sea wind as Byron sees new possible suspects and more bodies piling up day by day. Also, Byron’s partner, Detective Joyner, isn’t herself lately. Neither is Byron. Too many unsettling occurrences, not enough information.

This Detective Byron mystery kept me guessing until very nearly the end. His drive to reveal the truth is what powers him on, despite political and administrative factions that want to keep the status quo with regard to powerful generous benefactors, as well as public image of the Powers That Be.

I’d already read the third novel in this series, and now I want to go back and skim through that volume again with the understandings I’ve gleaned from this, the second Detective Byron mystery. I want to do a little investigation of my own. Fun!

3 s Donna2,010

In the first chapter, attorney Paul Ramsey is having a bad day. He lost a huge court case where he expected to reap 10 million dollars. Then he went to a bar to drown his sorrows and picks a fight with a the wrong guy. Little does he know his night is going to be much worse.

Maine Detective Sergeant John Byron gets the case when Ramsey's dead body is fished out of the ocean. Byron and his crew begin investigating Ramsey's personal and professional life to ferret out his killer.

I'd never heard of the author or this series. I've since read that the author Bruce Robert Coffin is a retired detective. It's obvious he knows exactly what he's writing about. Not only can he write crime fiction well, he instills the investigation with a methodical and realistic feel. This book is a very good police procedural.2 s Kevintipple831 17

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 multimillion 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.

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.


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

Kevin R. Tipple ©2020
2 s Cheryll1 review

Great story! Love to read authors from my own state of Maine.
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