First published 2010
Lt. Brian McCarran returns from Iraq carrying secrets he won't share. The general's son depends on his friendship with Kate Gallagher, whose husband Capt. Joe D'Abruzzo was Brian's commanding officer overseas. D'Abruzzo has grown distant and violent since coming home. When Brian shoots D'Abruzzo dead at their Virginia army post, he claims the black-belt martial artist attacked him first. Kate backs Brian's story about her abusive husband. Now Brian faces court-martial for murder. His defense team includes Capt. Paul Terry, a skilled military lawyer, and Brian's sister Meg, a San Francisco attorney who abandons her practice to save her brother. As Terry prepares the case, he grows close to Meg and discovers the McCarran family harbors dangerous secrets. The trial will expose how war damages not just soldiers but the families who love them.
Genres: fiction, drama, military-fiction, mystery, crime, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Iraq, Virginia
Period: 21st-century
401 pages · Hardcover · Henry Holt and Company, LLC
Content warnings: abuse, domestic-violence, violence