Beyond the Truth

by Bruce Robert Coffin

Published by Witness Impulse/Harper Collins 2018

Pages 404 Price $11.99 paperback

This novel is exciting because it takes place in Portland, Maine, written by a Maine author and retired police detective. Although it is fiction it comes alive because of the realistic dialogue, psychological understanding of those who work on a police force, and the familiar locations named in the book like: Portland High School, Monument Square, Elm Street, Preble Street, Chestnut Street, 109 Middle Street, (the Portland Police Department) and Hannaford’s parking lot by the bay.

Published by a major publishing company and distributed across the United States, it is exciting to read for people in Maine because we know the locations the author is talking about. However, the themes cover national issues such as drug distribution in schools, physical violence, murder, and the difficulties in being a policeman faced with emergencies and protecting the public.

I first met Coffin at a conference at the University of Southern Maine in Portland organized by the Maine Writers Alliance in the spring of 2016. I was in the audience, and he spoke on a panel. I was impressed with his humility and professional experience in the field as a retired detective in the Portland Police Department. So I bought his first book ”Among the Shadows,”and liked it. I did not get a chance to read his second book,”Beneath the Depths,” but picked up his new book “Beyond the Truth” this spring and two things happened. One, I loved it. Two I made a note to go back and read his second book because he is a great mystery writer. I mention this because you do not have to read his mystery series consecutively. Each novel has its own adventure but has Detective John Byron as the leading figure.

In this novel, “Beyond the Truth,” we see the agonizing psychological reaction of officer Sean Haggerty after he has shot and killed a teenager running away from  a robbery. Haggerty is sure the teenager was carrying a gun but no one can find the gun. Was it possible he shot an unarmed person? His painful doubts shake his whole belief in himself, as well as thoughts on  his extensive training for split second action in an emergency.

Detective Byron is there to defend his friend for using physical violence. Byron is a professional colleague, with his own problems, but councils his friend and searches for the missing gun to prove an active shooting on the streets of Portland, Maine was necessary.

This is a fictional novel and I mention it twice in this article so that Maine readers will not think it is a documentary of an actual event at Portland High School. The author does mention that Portland High School is the second oldest public high school  in our nation.That is a fact and a great one, but the story is a fictional creation out of Bruce Robert Coffin’s mind. It is so well written using realistic dialogue and description that the story is believable and thought provoking.

Part of the plot includes a police officer, Sean Haggerty, who works in Portland High School as a resource official. This imaginary story including Portland High school and involving places around the school is both frightening and exciting.You know this is fiction but you think it could be true because the issues are national problems found in schools across the United States today.  The topics in the book include: illegal drugs and their distribution in schools, juvenile robberies that turn quickly into tragedies, and the difficulties and pressures in being a policeman seeing the seamy side of life every day. The book also shows that policemen are not perfect. They are human. They have  their own personal struggles to deal with, as well as family upheavals like everyone else. They just do the best they can, and their lives are in danger every day.

If you want to know what happens to both Sean Haggerty and John Byron and if the teenager who was killed carried a gun, you will have to read “Beyond the Truth,” and find out. It is definitely worth it! I could not put the book down.

***

Where the Light Enters, Building Family Discovering Myself

by Jill Biden

Published by Flatiron Books 2019

Pages 210 Price $27

This book is a personal memoir of Vice President Joe Biden’s wife, Jill, who triumphs over fear to get close to anyone again after a broken first marriage and divorce. She is an amazing woman with an independent spirit.

She became independent through education, receiving her bachelors degree from Delaware University, a master’s degree from Westchester University and a Ph.d from Vilanova University. Biden taught English and Reading for 13 and became a professor of English and writing at the Delaware Technical and Community College from 1993 to 2008. She also taught as a professor of English at Northern Community College.

As an undergraduate student in college she had met Frank Biden, Joe Biden’s younger brother but had not seen him in many years. As a favor to a friend, who was working on a photography spread for an advertisement, she allowed herself to be photographed for a project which was hung on  some of the  Delaware airport walls.

Frank Biden picked up Joe Biden at the airport one day, four years after Biden’s tragic loss of his wife and daughter in a car accident, and Joe looking at photos on the airport wall, said, “I would like to meet a girl like that  some day.” His brother said, “I know her. I will get her telephone number for you.”

Chapter four opens with this sentence. “How did you get this number?” It was March 1975 and she did not give out her telephone number anywhere. ”MY brother Frank gave it to me,” Joe said.That is how this real life love story between a senator and a beautiful blond Ph.d started.

Jill wasn’t sure she wanted to go out with Joe but was excited that he called her. They became friends. Joe wanted to marry her but she was afraid to get married because she would have to give up her apartment and job and launch another career as wife and mother. After attending events with Joe she would come home and throw herself on the bed exhausted and wonder what she was doing.

At this point she realized marrying Joe wasn’t just marrying him. It was about Hunter and Beau, his sons, as well.They had a special bond. It was them against the world. And they were asking Jill to join their sacred circle.

By then they were acting more like a family. They went to Nantucket on a holiday and spent many happy hours there. By 1977 after several proposals to Jill, Joe said one day,”Look I have been as patient as I can but this has got my Irish up. Either you decide to marry me, or thats it, I’m out. I am not asking again.” When he came back from a trip they had planned to go to a family dinner. Jill opened the door and the first thing he said was,”I want to know your answer.” Jill writes, “ I  looked at him and quietly said, “Yes.”

While I felt this part of Jill’s book was warm and charming, I don’t think I needed to know how many times Biden asked her to marry him. After all he is an attractive guy, and I am sure many  other women were probably interested in him. However, Jill has made a wonderful wife for Biden and mother to Hunter and Beau and Ashley who arrived later.

I was more interested in hearing about her relationship with the Obamas and the challenges of bringing up a family in  Washington where time is not your own, and you are always in the public eye if you are married to a political figure.

When Beau was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, in 2013, Beau wanted it kept a secret. Only immediate family knew and a few close friends like the Obamas. In one of the darkest moments in their lives the Obamas were a great sources of strength. Jill relates that their friendship with the Obamas meant a great deal to them and they remain bonded forever.

Jill states that at Beau’s funeral President Obama said ”We’re honorary members of the Biden family. We are always here for you. We always will be. My word as a Biden.”

This is a beautiful book about human beings, not about political issues. It is about the growth of love through friendship and shared responsibilities. It is the kind of book you give at Christmas as a gift because it is about family unity, love, and having the courage to start a new life, as a loving woman,  afraid of commitment, and reluctant to marry a man who had faced such tragic losses. It is a book that gives hope for a new life for everyone who has faced obstacles in their lives and had to overcome them. Both Bidens overcame obstacles that would throw ordinary people. They made the wonderful decision to start a new life together and have found happiness again. I recommend it.

— Pat Davidson Reef is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston. She received her Masters Degree at the University of Southern Maine. She taught English and Art History at Catherine McAuley High for many years. She now teaches at the University of Southern Maine in Portland in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Classic Films. She recently wrote a children’s book,”Dahlov Ipcar Artist,” and has now completed another children’s book “Bernard Langlais Revisited.”