The Sparrow's Blade

Book excerpt: In the aftermath of having survived an encounter with pedophile serial killer Uriah Beek almost three years earlier, two still healing couples reconnect at Christmas time in the small Oregon coast city of Cutter Point. Kevin Kearnes, the city's former police chief, now a special agent with Homeland Security, is returning to Cutter Point with Britt McGraw and his two young sons to marry Britt on the same beach where he first kissed her. Thud Compton, Kearnes' old sergeant, and now Cutter Point's new chief, has invited them to stay at the Compton home. However, the Kearnes' are not the only ones traveling to Cutter Point for the holidays. Some very bad men are coming to town and instead of bearing gifts, they are planning on taking one for themselves; an old military sword from WWII rusting away inside its display case in the local library which, after 9/11, is now worth a million dollars on the world black market for war artifacts. Russian mobsters "Little Nikki" Kravchenko and Vlasi Voronov will happily accept half that much in payment from Phillip Peeters, the man who has hired them to steal it. But to college student Darius Ono, who has already failed at one attempt to take it, the sword is priceless and reclaiming it will restore honor to the name of his dead great uncle "The Emperor's Sparrow." Although they don't yet know it, Kevin Kearnes and Thud Compton are about to face their greatest threat ever when they are forced to pursue the murderous men who have stolen The Sparrow's Blade.