In this episode, I talk with Bruce Robert Coffin, who spent more than 27 years in law enforcement and supervised homicide and violent crime investigations in Portland, Maine. His acclaimed Detective John Byron series has been praised for being par with Joseph Waumbaugh and Ed McBain.
His novel, Beyond the Truth, winner of Killer Nashville’s Award for Best Procedural, was a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and a finalist for the Maine Literary Award for Best Crime Fiction.
Coffin shared that while his law enforcement career has helped him in his writing, the crime investigations helped him develop his characters and scenes.
“Beyond police procedure, the job afforded me the ability to get to see human nature up close and personal,” he said, “not only the psyche of the bad guy but the psyche of the victim, how things work in real life.”
He explained further, “I can tell you that, as a homicide detective, there is no police work that’s more political or a hot potato than investigating a murder because everybody wants something, and they all want it immediately. The surviving relatives want justice for the deceased, the investigators want the truth and hope to see justice prevail, and the thing go to the court, and the guilty convicted. The politicians, and the police chief, and the city council, they all want results, they’re all looking for an arrest yesterday.”
Memorable protagonists are those with flaws. When asked about Detective John Byron’s fatal flaw, Coffin provided insights into the challenges most law enforcement officers face.
“I think if (Bryon) has a fatal flaw, it’s probably that he, like so many police officers from his day, and probably even to a certain extent even now, they’re not good at asking for help,” said Coffin.
“And it really goes hand in hand with the job itself, because if you stop and think about it, we all try to say that we’ve come forward in law enforcement, and all first responders jobs do a better job with offering counseling and understanding the crisis that can slowly build up, and the ongoing PTSD battle with things that you see and deal with every day. And I think, to a certain extent, I think we are better at it, but I think one of the things that’s less likely to change quickly is the mindset of the individual.”
First responders are the “go-to people” in an emergency.
“I think you’re proud if you realize that you’re the person they expect to go and put a band-aid on every situation,” said Coffin. “And you start believing that because of that, you’re invincible, you steel yourself to all the things you see. I think that’s a recipe for disaster over time.”
He continued, “I think that’s really why I tried to instill some of that stuff in John, and that he’s real good about being there for other people and trying to make things happen, but he’s less good about being able to police what’s happening in his own life.”
Who is Coffin’s go-to author?
“It’s James Lee Burke,” he replied. “His writing, for me, is just that’s like the setting where the bar should be for me. I look at that, and I read what really, that their essence are gritty, noir-like, hard-boiled crime fiction.”
He added, “And yet, he manages, because he’s such a great writer, to almost… What he’s writing rises to the level of poetry. There’s a prose that’s above what you would expect with those kinds of books.
“And in a romantic way that he’ll describe New Orleans and the outlying areas, and some of the dive bars and the fishing shacks, and looking out across the bay as the lightning’s rolling across. And he describes it in such a way that I feel like I’m down there and I’m dripping from the humidity, and I’m sensing all these things.
“But the fact that he can put those two together, the hard-boiled mystery with that kind of writing, I have always found fascinating. I think it’s amazing that he can do it, and it works so well.”
Listen to this episode
Visit his web site brucerobertcoffin.com to read more. To check out all the “And the Murder Began” podcasts, visit Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible or Podomatic