Showing results by author "Christopher Jansmann" in All Categories

Discover a different kind of small-town detective in the debut novel of the Sean Colbeth Investigates series. How well do you know the people close to you – really, truly, know them? That’s the question Police Chief Sean Colbeth finds himself asking when a local university professor living in the small seaside village of Windeport, Maine is found dead in the bed of his late-model powder blue pickup truck, surrounded by five-gallon jugs of water. While it’s clear he’s been shot, there’s no bullet, no gun, and no clear reason why the geriatric head of the Extension Service would be ...

New City. New Job. Same broken heart. So much for a leaving it all behind. A millionaire’s missing computer, their dead housekeeper and a family secret hidden in plain sight: these are the elements of a most unusual case quite literally handed to Detective Vasily Korsokovach moments after arriving at John Wayne International in Southern California. Put into the awkward position of cleaning up a colleague’s sloppy investigation, Vasily immediately finds himself on the defensive after he begins asking uncomfortable questions in pursuit of the truth. And when he pulls a thread that ...

Where one journey ends, another begins. As the summer tourist season draws to a close in Windeport, Maine, Vasily Korsokovach is at a personal crossroads: unable to return to the career he’d barely begun in California, he unexpectedly finds himself resisting his best friend’s efforts to have him resume his old position in Windeport. Unsure if he even wants to be an investigator any longer, Vasily manages to nonetheless land himself in the middle of a case when he inadvertently discovers the body of a local developer at the bottom of a ditch not far from the local university. Sensing a ...

Spring: the season of renewal. For Vasily Korsokovach, it feels especially true: newly reinstated to his original position after a string of successful case closures, his life in Southern California appears to finally be back on track. That’s despite having been the key witness in an Internal Affairs investigation that takes down his former colleague (and one-time lover) — a role that does nothing to endear him to the rank-and-file of the Rancho Linda Police Department — and the nagging concern that said colleague seems to feel there are still scores to be settled. The promise of the ...

A featured selection at the 2023 Tucson Festival of Books They say the second time is the charm. Then again, maybe they don’t, but after a rocky summer in Maine, Vasily Korsokovach certainly hopes it’s true as he returns to more comfortable territory to resume the life he didn’t know he’d missed in his native Southern California. With a second chance at his law enforcement career and the welcome but unexpected support of a new significant other, Vas thinks he’s finally found the fresh start that faltered so badly months earlier. Balancing personal healing with his professional ...

It’s never good when you get a phone call in the middle of the night. For Vasily Korsokovach, it’s particularly problematic when the caller happens to be his estranged mother seeking a favor for a family friend. Vasily’s inclination to hang up on her is overridden by his shock that Emelina Korsokovach would even make the attempt to reach out in the first place, so he reluctantly agrees to drive halfway across Orange County on what he’s certain is a wild goose chase. Everything goes right out the proverbial window when Vasily’s off-the-books wellness check gets upgraded to a full-...

The past and present collide for Vasily Korsokovach in his latest adventure. Taking time off as a cop is always problematic — even more so when you are the Deputy Chief of Police. Despite his best attempts to keep the real world at bay long enough to celebrate the budding life he is building with his significant other, Vasily Korsokovach is forced to cut his Las Vegas vacation short after a body is discovered in the choir loft at St. Elspeth’s Cathedral. Dressed in clothes straight out of the late 1970s, the victim was clearly not an invited guest to the special requiem mass being held ...

It had been hard not to assume the midnight call dispatching Kathryn Oliver to the Santa Marcel Intermodal Rail Facility was some sort of informal departmental hazing ritual for the newly minted Senior Detective the very evening she’d been celebrating the retirement of her mentor. Poking around shipping containers in the middle of the night is the last thing Kate wants to do, especially when it means trying to validate a tip to the human trafficking hotline. Finding two dozen young women recently freed from a locked trailer should have been a win for the forces of good, but the gruesome ...

Getting away from everything can be murder. Reachable only by the once-daily mail boat from Windeport, Carpenter’s Island is a small, peaceful community catering to the discriminating tourist wanting to truly get away from everything. Comprised of a small fishing village at one end of the rugged, forested island and a modest seaside resort at the other, it’s the epitome of picture-perfect vacation spots the State of Maine is known for, though one that paradoxically prefers to keep itself out of the limelight in deference to its well-heeled visitors. Not being the target audience for the...

A featured selection at the 2023 Tucson Festival of Books It’s the season of miracles. At least, that’s what Windeport Police Chief Sean Colbeth is hoping for when he invites his estranged best friend to Windeport for the Christmas holiday. Miracle number one was Vasily Korsokovach picking up the phone months after abruptly exiting Sean’s life a second time; miracle number two was having him agree to leave the warm Southern California coast he nows calls home to spend ten days in the cold. If he’s truly lucky, miracle number three will see Sean finally mending a relationship he’d ...

Twenty years and a lifetime ago, Windeport Police Chief Sean Colbeth had his teenage heart badly broken when the girl he thought he loved dumped him for another guy in the most dramatic manner possible. Young love burns hot and fast, to be sure, but it wasn’t until Suzanne Kellerman stepped into his life that Sean figured out just how deep the wounds to his soul had been, and how carefully he’d been hiding them from the world. And from himself. On a sultry July 4th holiday weekend two decades later, a chance discovery in one of the last standing icehouses in the county threatens to ...

This isn’t what success is supposed to look like. Sean Colbeth should know; as one of the most accomplished investigators in the State of Maine, the Police Chief of Windeport is used to the quiet accolades that come with a job well done. But solving the first major crime the village has seen in decades brought with it unexpected fallout: not only did he fracture relationships with just about everyone he held dear, the abrupt departure of his best friend is an open wound that refuses to heal. And when Vasily Korsokovach’s absence directly contributes to the death of an elderly resident, ...

A featured selection at the 2024 Tucson Festival of Books Distracted by guilt over the serious injuries his best friend sustained while assisting with a case, Vasily Korsokovach doesn’t think much of the envelope that appears in his mailbox at the Rancho Linda Police Department. Containing a bunch of retro Polaroid snapshots showing a series of ordinary objects in everyday situations, the Deputy Chief finds himself at a loss as to why anyone would send him such random photos; whatever hidden message the sender was hoping to pass along is a mystery that Vasily is unwilling to delve into. ...

Roped into helping his favorite millionaire author host a charitable Halloween gala at her mansion, Deputy Chief Vasily Korsokovach finds himself unusually annoyed at having to set aside his clandestine wedding planning; with the possible New Years date now visible on the horizon, not only are there far too many items to get pinned down than he would like, Vas is increasingly worried his fiancé has begun to realize something is afoot — and he knows from experience a suspicious Alejandro Ortega-Cortez is a force to be reckoned with. Constitutionally being unable to say no to Rosie ...

Weeks after his welcome reconciliation with his best friend, Windeport Police Chief Sean Colbeth is firmly mired in the doldrums of a brutal Coastal Maine winter that just won’t quit. With snowbanks outside his office window high enough to block out what little sun they are getting — not to mention the minutiae of administering his department similarly piling up — Sean is more than looking forward to breaking the seemingly endless monotony of the season. His long-planned vacation to attend a comic book convention in Anaheim with his main squeeze is literally just what the doctor ...

A featured selection at the 2025 Tucson Festival of Books Secrets can — and will — kill. Mired in the fallout from allowing a murderer to elude justice, the last thing Windeport Police Chief Sean Colbeth needs is another suspicious death in the small village. He gets one all the same when the bespectacled proprietor of Route One Hobbies, Walter Guernsey, is found dead a few days after the Fourth of July holiday. Known throughout the county for aisles well-stocked with eclectic materials supporting just about any special interest, the store’s signature feature is an intricately ...

Join mystery author Chris Jansmann as he chats about one of his novels with his book-loving friend.

Love appears when you least expect it. Dr. Suzanne Kellerman never expected to lose her heart to someone again — not after naïvely giving it away to a man who had ruthlessly shredded it before returning what was left with the divorce paperwork. Relocating to Windeport, Maine, had been the first stop in her journey to recover the woman she had once been, and falling in love with someone else hadn’t been on her roadmap. At least, not until her chance meeting with the handsome Police Chief just a few days after her arrival; the way Sean Colbeth made her feel had her torn between fleeing ...