Honor Due

 Author's Summary

In Honor Due, the Major is an ex-Special Forces Vet whose years in 'Nam taught him the art of war. He'd worked covertly for the government until the '90s, when bone-tired of the killing, he walked away and lost himself in the Pacific Northwest. Until he's targeted by a Special Ops team, and forced to resume hunting in the old way. When he find his old Montagnard friend, former Rhade Striker, tortured and killed, and his friend's daughter hiding in the forest, he vows to take the vengeance owed his fallen brother and family. The Major's new mission is to unearth what happened 35 years earlier as South Vietnam was falling, that has triggered the current pursuit. Still mourning his Rhade wife and children killed in that far-away jungle, he doesn't expect to find, and does, another chance at love. Honor Due speaks for the soul of our citizen warriors, appealing to readers of both genders interested in the way soldiers view the world. Without glamorizing violence, Honor Due offers a tense drama and insights into the warrior's code, honor, personal responsibility and the necessity of keeping fang and claw sharp in this age of terrorism.

MWSA Review

MWSA 2008 Silver Medal for Fiction, Thriller

Few Americans know about the American forces fighting with the Montagnards in the central highlands of Vietnam. A battlefield for some 30 years,“the ‘Yards” were one of the country’s 54 major ethnic groups. Allied with the Americans, the Montagnards were horribly persecuted by the victorious North Vietnamese after the American forces left the country in 1975, with many emigrating to the United States.

Author D.H. Brown, a Vietnam vet who fought with the Montagnards, has written a fast-paced thriller based on the CIA-Special Forces-Montagnard relationships that continued after 1975.

With the hero patterned after a special forces vet living in the Pacific Northwest rainforest, Brown’s story drags the hero, ex-Special Forces, back into the CIA- Spec Ops – Montagnard confusion of the late 1960’s – early 1970’s. His ‘yard’ friend suddenly and brutally murdered after an attempt on his own life, Brown’s hero finds himself falling in love with his friend’s daughter as they chase and are chased by a renegade CIA hit team. The action is realistic and convincing as our two defend themselves before a thrilling and surprising conclusion.

Honor Due is D.H. Brown’s first literary effort, and the first of a planned trilogy and is well worth reading.

Reviewed by: Andrew Lubin (2008)