"I took an oath to defend the United States at one time. I don't remember it having an expiration date." The Major

This is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance of the characters in this novel to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  You do believe in coincidences, don't you?

Major Westfall is awakened before dawn one Saturday by a frantic phone call from his old friend and War brother, Jimmy, owner of the Spring Tavern.  His sister's home out along the Strait of Juan de Fuca has been burnt, she can't be found and there's a headless body in the debris.  With the light of his life, Blon, away in Seattle with her mother, the Major sets out in his ancient pickup with Black Dog at his side.

The Strait Vistas enclave is crowded with neighbors and emergency vehicles.  Jimmy says his sister's husband, a Marine Corps Officer, was home on leave and their kids had been staying the weekend with school friends.  A neighbor had seen the sister's car leave in the dark, and another who remembers hearing dogs barking and a gun shot in the middle of the night.  The family's Great Dane is nowhere to be seen.

The Major leaves to recon the beach behind the Holbech home.  At an old lovers' haunt further west on Highway 112 he finds frosty evidence of a vehicle and a smoker.  With Black Dog at his heel, he walks back along the beach.  Nearing the enclave he comes across a furrow in the sand at the high tide line where a boat had ran ashore.  Following footprints leading toward the family's home, Black Dog noses out the wounded Great Dane.  The Major carries it back to his truck and calls Donnie, an old 'Nam medic friend now in Neah Bay, to come tend the wounded.

The Major sends a text message to Blik to check shipping along the Strait the night before, any law enforcement Wi-Fi chatter to and from Clallam Bay and to call in his younger brother, Kue ASAP.  When Donnie arrives Jimmy's niece pleads for him to fix her dog.

Off to town to hunt for clues, the Major stops by the library to hear that Miss Quint already knows about the family's troubles, and that last week there'd been a break-in at a nearby quarry where all the explosives and detonators were taken.

Following the clues, the Major, begins to dig up a well buried trail of an organized terrorist cell ensconced deep in the immense timberlands of the Olympic Peninsula.

HONOR DEFENDED occurs over one 24 hour period of heart-pounding, breath-stopping action in which old friends are met, new ones made, the young must grow up fast as lives are broken, and the honor of a War Brother's family is defended.

Killing the enemy leaves no room for prisoners and the Major takes none.

"Killing is not sport. It's a job." The Major

RELEASE DATE: January 2009
VITAL INFORMATION
TITLE: HONOR DEFENDED
AUTHOR: D. H. BROWN
PUBLISHER: BIG RIVER PRESS
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-9798744-5-1 PRICE: $22.95 US
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9798744-6-8 PRICE: $14.95 US
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