Homefront [Mass Market Paperback]

Nina Pryce and Phil Broker and their daughter, Kit, retreat to the northern reaches of Minnesota to help Nina recover from injuries received on her latest mission. Nina damaged her shoulder and the realization is dawning that she will have to quit the military work she loves so much.

As Nina plunges into a deep depression, Phil is left to care for her, raise Kit, deal with the school, housework-and in his free time, help out friend Harry Griffin with his landscape business. Harry and Phil go way back to their days in the military. Phil and his family are staying in a remote lake house that Griffin owns. The hope is that the isolated spot will help Nina heal.

Kit begins having problems with the school bully, Teddy Klumpe, and ends up punching Teddy in the nose, humiliating him. His parents react with unreasonable anger and Phil doesn't help the situation when he violently confronts Teddy's father at the school. It seems Phil and his family have made some terrifying enemies. Teddy's mother, Cassie, is strange and violent, and is not beyond reaching out to her brother, ex-con Gator Bodine for help. Gator, who has some dangerous connections, discovers Phil's past as an undercover cop.

Homefront is non-stop nail-biting suspense, filled with evil villains, and a sense of atmosphere (the cold and dark north woods filled with howling wolves, and abandoned farms used as meth labs).

This is the seventh in the Nina Pryce/Phil Broker series. Logan is known for his strong female characters, accurate portrayal of police procedure (even though his main character is retired from the police, he still has dealings with them), and his strong sense of place.

Armchair Interviews says: Don't read this on a dark, dreary, cold winter night alone in an isolated northern Minnesota cabin. You'll scare yourself to death! Logan has done it again! Homefront is a superb page-turner.

Chuck Logan continues to create great images with his words.

I think it helps to read his books in order since many of the characters continue and mature from one story to the next.

I was surprised to find five typos in the book. Did anyone find more?

I almost didn't finish HOMEFRONT. It begins with a school playground argument wherein a bully named Terry Klumpe gets a swift comeuppance administered by eight-year-old Kit Broker. Kit's mother and father --- Nina Pryce and Phil Broker --- aren't your garden-variety PTA parents. They've relocated to Glacier Falls, MN, so that Pryce, a Delta Force Army marksman, can recuperate from the aftereffects of a mission that has left her physically and psychologically devastated. Broker is a retired --- and legendary --- law enforcement officer. Kit, who was only defending herself in the dustup, gets blamed for it, and Broker kind of wimps out over it. Add to this Broker's gratuitous yada-yada about the Iraqi War, and I was almost ready to add HOMEFRONT to the reject pile. I was extremely glad I didn't, because it turns out that this is one of the best novels I've read this year.

Chuck Logan has been building the Phil Broker/Nina Pryce series for a while now; HOMEFRONT is the fifth installment, and by far the best. The little playground drama I mentioned above is a catalyst for a whole bunch of things. Little Mr. Klumpe comes by his beetle brow honestly; he is the child of Jimmy Klumpe and Cassie Bodine, both of whom have family trees that fork instead of branch. Klumpe, who owns the local waste disposal business, has a good portion of the town intimidated, while Bodine has a crystal meth addiction that rides her like a cowboy.

Klumpe escalates the situation by bringing Gator Bodine, his brother-in-law, into the mix. Gator at first seems to be a good ol' boy with a very warped sense of humor, but Logan, with almost agonizing patience, peels back the fragile, deceptive layers of normality that permit Gator to apparently co-exist with those around him.

When Gator discovers Broker's true background, he contacts a party who is quite interested in the current whereabouts of the retired officer. Gator plans to use his knowledge to leverage some assistance with an illicit business he quietly has been developing. Broker and Pryce, trying to rebuild their tenuous relationship while Pryce recuperates from the physical and mental ravages of her injury, are unaware that an immediate and terrible danger is on the verge of confronting them and their daughter, at a time when their defenses are at their lowest ebb.

Logan is not yet a household name, and that is a shame. This guy is a master of description and plot, intertwining the two into a story where anything can, and does, happen. Logan doesn't just create bad guys; he manufactures penultimate bogeymen who are incredibly realistic, almost normal in fact but for a telling physical or mental quirk that gives hint to the seething madness beneath. Logan also is a master of pacing; he ratchets up the events of the novel slowly, then kicks out the jams toward a denouement that you won't want to read without having a defibrillator greased up and at the ready.

Seriously: the last 60 pages of HOMEFRONT are heartstopping, heartbreaking, and heartwarming, sometimes simultaneously. This is one that you absolutely should not miss, at the risk of cheating yourself.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub