Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Summer Randall is the golden girl in the small town of Greenville, Maine.  Smart, beautiful, athletic, she appears to have it all.  So why is she running through the woods for her life in the middle of the night?

The following morning, that area is set off by yellow police crime tape.  Maine State homicide detectives Brock Justice and his partner Chloe Wright are called to the scene because what at first glance looked like a horrific car accident is clearly, on closer analysis, a brutal murder.  There’s a small cut on Summer’s side that was there before the accident, the on-scene medical examiner tells the detectives.

No sooner do Brock and Chloe arrive at the scene than Evan Mathers appears.  Several months earlier Brock had testified against Evan, then a Maine State Detective, in a wrongful shooting case.  Evan was cleared of the charge, and Brock was demoted and transferred to the northern part of the state. 

However, Brock is not able to leave the court case behind him.  He’s certain that Evan killed the victim deliberately, but he now discovers that Evan resigned from the State Police and is a member of the local force where Summer lived.

The case turns into a media circus when the victim is identified as the daughter of a U. S. Congresswoman, a woman who is always searching for problems with the police.  One of the suspects in the case is Ronnie Libby, Summer’s ex-boyfriend.  He was arrested the previous year for assaulting the young woman while on drugs.  Summer’s father Taylor threatened Ronnie and thus lost his job as a reserve officer on the town police force, and Ronnie went into a voluntary drug rehabilitation program.

Brittney LaRoux was Summer’s best friend, and she tells Brock that she is blaming herself for her friend’s death.  The two were supposed to go on a training run the previous afternoon, but Brittney had canceled at the last minute.  “And I think she might be dead because of me.”

Chloe attends Summer’s autopsy, and it’s discovered that the young woman was several weeks pregnant.  Did Summer and Ronnie get together again, and is Ronnie the baby’s father?  Or was she involved with someone else?

Brock tells Chloe that the pregnancy must remain a secret, including from Summer’s parents.  When Chloe objects, saying “That’s cold, even for you,” Brock reminds her that the fact that the victim died of a stab wound, not as originally thought by being hit by a car, became public knowledge even though it was supposed to be kept under wraps.  He doesn’t want the same thing to happen with the latest information, and his partner reluctantly agrees.

Bruce Robert Coffin has written another riveting police procedural.  His characters, with their strengths and foibles, make them true-to-life and relatable.  Plus, the twist at the end is totally satisfying.

You can read more about the author, a retired Portland, Maine police detective, at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

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