When Private Matt Duffy wakes up in an army hospital in Iraq, he's honored with a Purple Heart. But he doesn't feel like a hero.

There's a memory that haunts him: an image of a young Iraqi boy as a bullet hits his chest. A little boy who'd been Matt's friend. And Matt can't shake the feeling that he was somehow involved in his death. But because of a head injury he sustained just moments after the boy was shot, Matt can't quite put all the pieces together.

Eventually Matt is sent back into combat with his squad—Justin, Wolf, and Charlene—the soldiers who have become his family during his time in Iraq. He's counting on his buddies to help find out the truth. But in combat, there is no black and white, and Matt soon discovers that the notion of who is guilty is very complicated indeed.

National Book Award Finalist Patricia McCormick has written a visceral and compelling portrait of life in a war zone, where loyalty is valued above all, and death is terrifyingly commonplace.

Patricia McCormick is a former journalist who has won much acclaim for her compassionate approach to hard-hitting subjects. To research PURPLE HEART, she traveled all around the country to interview soldiers as well as the families of soldiers who went to Iraq and never returned. She also took part in a peace demonstration with veterans from the war in Iraq. There was a pair of boots for every soldier who'd died and a pile of shoes to represent the civilian lives that had been lost. "I remember the sight of a pair of little boy's sneakers in the pile," she said. "And I instantly had an image of a child being struck by a machine gun bullet. It was an image that has haunted me ever since."