Richmond Beach author Jeffrey D. Briggs at Richmond Beach Library Thurs. 3pm

Author Jeffrey D. Briggs

Richmond Beach resident and new author, Jeffrey D. Briggs, will be at the Richmond Beach Library on Thursday, November 7, at 3pm to read from his debut novel, Out of the Cold Dark Sea, book one in the Seattle Waterfront Mystery series. 

Set among familiar locations to area readers such as Ballard, Lake Union and Puget Sound, Out of the Cold Dark Sea features Martha Whitaker who waits alone on a pier in the pre-dawn rain for her friend and mentor, Hewitt Wilcox. Fear had laced his last message. Now she must again control her fear as she navigates secrets new and old to clear her name and locate her missing friend. Before anyone else is killed.

The dark, cold waters of Puget Sound can hide its secrets for a long time until mysteries and old grudges arise like ghosts from a history long-forgotten. 

When his empty van is hoisted from the frigid waters, Martha begins the search to find Hewitt. Resourceful, strong, and steeled by inner wounds, Martha is joined by a crusading journalist, who believes Hewitt’s disappearance may reveal secrets about an ugly chapter of American history. 

Together they’re drawn into a sinister world of forgery, murder, and betrayal, and she is forced to confront her own dark past, where violence provided primal justice. In a fight for her life, she finds she’s in a fight for her soul.

Out of the Cold Dark Sea is a gripping debut in the Seattle Waterfront Mystery series from a journalist who plumes the depths people will go to for revenge.

Jeffrey D. Briggs, a writer and journalist, has been writing about the Seattle waterfront since he moved onto his sailboat thirty years ago. He now lives on land with his wife and dog and can often be found on the shores of Puget Sound, wondering what secrets lie hidden beneath those cold waters.

He has published over 350 articles in regional and national magazines. A long-time resident of Seattle, Wash., he took a detour in life and moved to Rochester, Minn., where he became a biomedical science writer for Mayo Clinic, and got to preview all his future diseases. 

He also got to shovel many varieties of snow and experience his first Polar Vortex. Realizing his mistake when he could no longer see out his office window because of snow drifts, he returned home to the Pacific Northwest, dropping anchor in Shoreline’s Richmond Beach, a beachfront community on the shores of Puget Sound.