Our first session on February 25, 2026, will feature Bruce Robert Coffin talking to us about Bitter Fall, his latest novel which is part of the Detective Justice Mysteries.
Bruce, an international bestselling novelist and short story writer, is a retired police detective sergeant with more than twenty-seven years in law enforcement who supervised all homicide and violent crime investigations for Maine's largest city.
Following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, Bruce spent four years investigating counter-terrorism cases for the FBI, earning the Director's Award, the highest award a non-agent can receive. He is the author of the DetectiveByron Mysteries, co-author of The Turner and Mosley Files along with bestselling author LynDee Walker, and author of the forthcoming Detective Justice Mysteries.
Winner of Killer Nashville's Silver Falchion Awards for Best Procedural, Best Investigator, and the Maine Literary Award for Best Crime Fiction Novel, Bruce was also a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel. His Anthony Award nominated short fiction appears in more than fifteen anthologies, including Best American Mystery Stories 2016.
Bruce is a member of International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Short Mystery Fiction Society, and the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. He lives and writes in Maine
About the book:
On a moonless stretch of backcountry road, Detective Brock Justice stares down at a crime scene that refuses to play by the rules. A woman lies dead, the apparent victim of a lethal roadside crash—until a stab wound is found hidden beneath her clothing. Two causes of death. Zero easy answers.
Reunited with his partner, Detective Chloe Wright, Justice begins pulling at threads too many people want left alone. The victim had secrets—the kind worth killing for. And each suspect carries enough baggage to sink a body in Moosehead Lake. An ex-boyfriend with a violent past. A married fitness trainer with too much to lose. A combat veteran living off the grid, haunted by ghosts of his own.
As golden leaves turn blood-red against pewter skies, Justice is fighting more than just a killer. The fallout from testifying against a fellow trooper clings to him like a bad debt, and someone inside the department is making sure he pays for it.
Then a game warden’s trail camera captures something deep in the woods. But it isn’t just a clue—it’s a warning.