In the Name of Honor, by Richard North Patterson (Henry Holt; $26)

It's about time! After several misfires, Richard North Patterson has written a book that equals or betters anything he's written before. In the Name of Honor has it all: fascinating, unpredictable characters; gripping courtroom drama; and a crackerjack twist that adds complexity and moral conflict to what was already a multi-layered plot.

Here's the back story. Captain Paul Terry of the Army's JAG Corps is two months from starting a lucrative new job with a civilian law firm when he's assigned to be defense counsel on a sticky case: an Army lieutenant accused of shooting his former commanding officer. The relationships are very confusing, so stay with me here: We've got two Army families, the McCarrans and the Gallaghers. The dads are best friends at West Point, but only Anthony McCarran comes back from Viet Nam alive. His wife dies young. So the Gallaghers and McCarrans are, for all intents and purposes, one family. Okay, fast forward. Anthony McCarran is now a general, in line to be named chairman of the joint chiefs. Brian McCarran has followed the family tradition of joining the Army, while his sister Meg is a civilian attorney. Their quasi-sister, Kate Gallagher, is married to Captain Joe D'Abruzzo, who is also'coincidentally (and conveniently for the plot) Brian's commanding officer in Iraq. McCarran and D'Abruzzo return to the states, and each is a changed man. D'Abruzzo has become violent and beats Kate Gallagher, even to the extent of holding a gun to her head. She asks Brian McCarran for help. He removes the gun from the D'Abruzzo house. D'Abruzzo realizes the gun is missing, goes to Brian McCarran's apartment, looks like he's going to attack, and Brian McCarran shoots him dead.   

And that's when the story begins. Captain Terry is charged with trying to get Brian McCarran off. Self-defense is a tough sell, since D'Abruzzo was shot in the back. Terry suspects that something happened in Iraq that changed both McCarran and D'Abruzzo and might have influenced the shooting. McCarran won't talk about his experiences, nor is he particularly forthcoming about other details that Terry needs to know in order to properly defend him. Working closely with Meg McCarran, Terry probes deeper and deeper until he finally realizes that the family secrets and shifting dynamics of the intertwined McCarran and Gallagher families form a force larger than he can surmount. 

The story is told primarily through dialogue and courtroom testimony, and the real-time revelations add to the suspense. In some of his previous books, Patterson has spent as much time on the soap box as on the plot. There's none of that in this book: it's just a terrific, perfectly crafted courtroom thriller.