Before the death of his wife, Sean O’Brien makes a promise to her that he has no plans to break until he starts building a new life in an old cabin on a remote stretch of a tropical river in the heart of Florida. It’s there that he discovers an injured young woman who whispers a cryptic message into his ear. As she fights for her life, Sean makes a promise to her, but to fulfill it he’ll have to end the vow he made to his dead wife, and he’ll have to face a criminal mind that has a tap root into his previous life. For O’Brien to begin to live a new life, he must revisit the past where a brilliant criminal mind lies waiting to write a dark future.

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### From Publishers Weekly

Lowe's debut offers little suspense or surprise, though well-crafted prose suggests he's capable of better. Ex-Miami homicide cop Sean O'Brien, who's retreated to a house on Florida's St. Johns River, carries the usual baggage for a reluctant hero. His wife died from cancer six months earlier, and his policeman father was shot dead in the line of duty when he was a child. O'Brien calls in the Volusia County police after discovering a severely beaten, dying young woman on the river bank. O'Brien soon finds himself attracted to one investigating officer, Det. Leslie Moore, and at odds with another, Det. Mitchell Slater, who he believes may be covering up for the killer. Predictably, the unidentified woman's slaying may be connected with an unsolved serial murder case O'Brien worked on in Miami. Suspects include some powerful locals possibly involved in sex trafficking. O'Brien could sustain a series if he's attached to less by-the-numbers story lines in the future. *Author tour. (Apr.)*
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### From Booklist

Sean O’Brien’s lifestyle seems at first glance to be the envy of us all. Though barely on the shady side of 40, he has a riverfront cabin home on one of Florida’s (and America’s) signature wilderness waterways, the Saint John’s River. He is also proud possessor of a cabin cruiser birthed practically in the shadow of Ponce Inlet lighthouse. And if that isn’t enough, he has chick-magnet charisma, but he prefers as a companion a gator-bait dachshund by the name of Max. O’Brien is not a moneyed ne’er-do-well. He is instead a widower and a “retired” Miami homicide detective, and, according to Volusia County sheriff’s investigator, he’s a good prospect to take the fall for a string of sex murders, a situation that forces him back to crime solving. Though a bit light on the reality quotient here and there, A False Dawn makes good reading for anyone longing to stumble upon an unpublished John D. MacDonald Florida mystery. This isn’t quite that, but it will do nicely. --Steve Glassman