Keeper — George C. Chesbro

Jade Aden, an ex-Naval Intelligence officer and formerly the service's top covert operative in the Middle East, is a woman with dark, dangerous secrets, and deadly skills. As the result of a brutal incident,she has been made a scapegoat and unjustly discharged from the Navy. The price of her continued freedom is Jade's absolute silence concerning her knowledge of the nation's covert activities as well as the circumstances surrounding her separation from the Navy. A widow with two deeply troubled teenage children, Jade lives in the bucolic town of Cairn-on-the-Hudson, where she works as a Riverkeeper for the local fishermen's association. Her job is to monitor waste discharged into the river by recreational boaters and commercial shipping traffic as well as by the many industrial plants that line the great river's shores.

She is content with her new life, for it gives her time to work to heal the bruised minds of her son and daughter. However, her peace is shattered one day when a mysterious object that only she can identify is dredged from the dark depths of the river. The discovery leads to death and destruction.

Determined to right a wrong, her only ally a local police detective, Jade presses for justice and restitution to the victims of the incident, and as a result finds herself targeted not only by a team of assassins determined to silence her forever, but also by a maniacal, old enemy.