Shadow of the Corps

This uneven debut thriller opens with Sean Fitzsimmons, a cartoonish thug, picking up a gun and cash from a safety deposit box, then cuts to the military funeral of Alex Snead, a Marine Corps lawyer (JAG) who was shot at his home in Raleigh, N.C. In a court-martial held in 2010, Snead prosecuted Capt. Michael Ruffers for the 2009 bombing of an Afghan village that killed 78 Afghans and five Marines, while Dale Riley, another JAG lawyer, successfully defended Ruffers. Promptly drummed out of the Corps, the unemployed Riley is now living with his wife and baby son in his parents’ home in Charlotte. The court-martial serves as mere background for the attempts of the hapless Fitzsimmons to kill those involved with the case, including Riley and Eric Scholl, Riley’s co-counsel who’s now an FBI agent. Dupont clearly knows his way around the Marines and a courtroom, but the narrative is overly complex. Agent: Liza Fleissig, Liza Royce Agency. (July)