Oath of Honor

This inspirational thriller from Eason (Moving Target) nicely mixes crime and romance in rural South Carolina. Childhood friends police officer Izzy St. John and rookie Kevin Marshall are now police partners. One night, acting on a tip from an informant he wasn’t supposed to be in contact with, Kevin drags Izzy to an abandoned warehouse to do surveillance on a high-level arms deal. But when Kevin goes rogue and sprints into the warehouse where the deal is happening, he is killed in a spray of bullets. Kevin’s detective brother, Ryan, has already lost a brother in Afghanistan and vows to find who murdered Kevin and why. While neither Ryan nor Izzy can officially be on the case, they work together in their own informal investigation. In the process, Izzy and Ryan get closer than ever, despite a killer on the loose and their own emotional baggage. Although concerned and delicate with both grief and romance, Eason’s well-rounded story doesn’t spend too much time bogged down in either as the harrowing plot unfolds. Eason’s fans will enjoy this first installment of a promising new series. (Jan.)