From Publishers Weekly
Logan's new police thriller, a sequel to Absolute Zero, has former cop Phil Broker on the hunt for "the Saint," a mysterious killer of suspected child molesters whose signature is a St. Nicholas medallion left in the mouths of his victims. The Saint's latest target, a Catholic priest, has fallen prey in the small town of Stillwater, Minn., where Broker, a retired cop who worked undercover for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, now lives. The local police chief lacks the manpower to marshal much of an investigation, so he hires Broker. Soon, Broker's instincts lead him to two prime suspects. One is Harry Cantrell, a notoriously violent cop and drunkard with a particular dislike for child molesters. The other is a prosecutor, the lithesome Gloria Russell, still seething over her courtroom defeat that let a child killer walk free. Also on Broker's mind is the fact that his estranged wife, an undercover government operative, has disappeared somewhere in Europe, along with their five-year-old daughter. Logan crafts his plot with vigor and clarity, setting up what initially looks like a predictable finale, then pulling the rug out from under readers. With rich characters, a voice of unhesitating assurance and a plot refreshingly free of gimmickry, Logan once again delivers good old-fashioned storytelling.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Extreme-weather lover Logan sets his latest excellent Phil Broker thriller not in the customary bone-chilling Minnesota winter but in the midst of a brutal Minnesota summer heat wave. Broker is called away from his vacation for a dual mission. His former cohorts, investigators in the Twin Cities, face the apparent return of the Saint, a vigilante killer and local hero with a particular hatred for child molesters. The cops have long suspected that Broker's former partner-turned-nemesis Harry Cantrell knows more about the killings than he's telling, but Harry has skipped town in a last-ditch effort to avoid treatment for his alcoholism. Broker is drafted as the best bet to bring him in--and to find out what he knows. Tensions come to a boil along with the weather as the victims mount, Harry evades, Broker sweats, and the Saint continues to take justice into her own hands--but whose hands are they? Carrie Bissey
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description

When the phone wakes Phil Broker on the morning of his forty-eighth birthday -- six months removed from his surviving a January cold snap that (in Absolute Zero) nearly claimed his life -- it's already ninety-two degrees. It's July, and Stillwater, Minnesota, finds itself in the middle of the worst heat wave in local memory.

The news on the phone has nothing to do with his birthday wishes, however. A year earlier, an angry citizen served as jury and executioner by pumping twelve bullets into a known pedophile -- and in the process became a folk hero, dubbed "the Saint" by locals. The investigation quickly went cold, and ever since rumors have circulated that the real reason the Saint hasn't been apprehended is that he -- or she -- is a cop.

Now a priest has been murdered. Was the priest a sexual predator? Is the Saint back? The caller begs for Broker's help, but as new victims start turning up, Broker wonders if he's been set up to catch a bullet for a scandal that threatens to bring down the Stillwater Police Department.

Download Description
E-book extra: "Phil Broker: Old-Fashioned Hero Whose Time Has Come." When the body of a priest is found with the medallion of Saint Nicholas -- the patron saint of small children - tucked into his mouth, former cop Phil Broker is recruited to stop a vigilante's murderous rage.

About the Author
Vapor Trail is my fifth novel--the fourth featuring Phil Broker--and it's been suggested that Broker and I have more than a little bit in common. We're both former soldiers, alienated by the technology craze of the 1980s and '90s, choosing instead to drive the back roads, suspecting we'd survive long enough to come back into style. I was born a week after the Battle of Midway in a country fighting for its existence. I grew up thinking there were only three ways to go for an American male: fireman, cop or paratrooper. I served in Vietnam; Broker turned out to be both paratrooper and cop. Neither of us was ever a fireman...My father was a dark absent figure, who fought pro in Chicago and stayed mixed up with the wrong people. Mom left him when I was an infant. For a while I had a step dad who was a cop in Detroit. After the cop left, when I was eight, my mother sent me to Georgia Military Academy. In 1953 mom and I were driving during a storm in Marion, Kentucky. The car went off the road.I was thrown through the windshield into a swamp. Mom died at the wheel. I floated on my back in swamp water, unable to move because my chest was severely injured. I had deep cuts in my face and jaw; I was choking on my blood. If I panicked, I started to sink; so I had to remain calm, swallow the blood, and stay afloat until help arrived. I grew up to become a talented drunk; after flunking out of college in Detroit I matriculated through the auto factories. Initially I wouldn't enlist for Vietnam because I was opposed the war. But I was nagged by the question of service. I knew who was fighting the war--I watched them leave the factories month after month while I hid out behind my invalid student deferment. So I volunteered for the Airborne because jump wings were a guaranteed ticket to a combat slot in Vietnam. And so one of my childhood goals had been realized: I was an Army paratrooper assigned as a radioman to a small advisory team in Vietnam. [Broker makes a profitable return to Vietnam in THE PRICE OF BLOOD. Sorry to say, that episode isn't biographical.] One moonless monsoon night in 1969 I was crossing flooded rice paddies in northern Quang Tri Province, going to the aid of an embattled Vietnamese militia unit. We hit a VC blocking force. As I dived for cover I split my lip and when I rolled over in the water, in the light of a flare, I saw that the paddy was full of corpses. The unit we were going to relieve had made a run for it and had been annihilated. There I was, face up to the rain, floating in muddy water, blood in my mouth, surrounded by the dead in an eerie replay of 1953. Having such experiences recommends storytelling as a personal form of expression. Several inpatient stints in drug dependency wards later I found employment doing art & graphics at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Somewhere around this time I was asked to do a book review. After it ran, some of the reporters asked me who'd written it for me.Hmmmm. My chances of becoming a writer were about one in a million. I liked the odds and set to work. Fortunately, I had the encouragement of a remarkable editor at the paper, Deborah Howell, and the example and guidance of John Camp, aka John Sanford, friend and former colleague at the Pioneer Press.John was writing thrillers full time. Several false starts later, I sold my first book, Hunter's Moon, which was a rehash of many of the dark themes from my earlier life. But it was time to get on the with the second half of my life which included 25 years of stone cold sobriety, a successful marriage, a beautiful daughter and the geography and climate of northern Minnesota. The result was my loner character, Phil Broker.He has been described as a fugitive from modern psychology who believes in monsters because it requires old -- fashioned heroes to catch them. And now it seems that Broker, having driven the backs roads long enough, might be getting some legs.During the 1980s and '90s that soldier service stuff was for "other people". But then the world got more real than virtual. Maybe in this post 9/11, post Enron world, the one percent of us under 65 who've actually served in combat, like my guy Broker, are coming back into style, to stand alongside cops and fireman.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"The snow is gone, the ice is gone - winter is long forgotten. When the phone wakes Phil Broker at five a.m. on the morning of this forty-eighth birthday - six months removed from his surviving a January cold snap that (in Absolute Zero) nearly claimed his life - it's already ninety-two degrees. It's July, and Stillwater, Minnesota, finds itself in the middle of the worst heat wave in local memory." "The news on the phone has nothing to do with birthday wishes, however. A year earlier, an angry citizen served as jury and executioner by pumping twelve bullets into a known pedophile - and in the process became a folk hero, dubbed "the Saint" by locals. Despite protests to the contrary, everybody in the community (including the police department) felt justice had been served, and the investigation quickly went cold. Ever since, strong rumors have circulated that the real reason the Saint hasn't been apprehended is that he - or she - is a cop." "Now a priest has been murdered, and a clue left at the scene suggests it to be the work of a vigilante. Was the priest a sexual predator? Could the Saint be back? For the members of the Stillwater law-enforcement community, it means that a killer could be in their midst." The caller begs for Broker's help: as an outsider, Broker can be counted on to follow the investigation wherever it leads. But as the temperature mounts and new victims begin surfacing, Broker wonders if he's been set up to catch a bullet for a scandal that threatens to bring down the Stillwater Police Department.

SYNOPSIS

E-book extra: "Phil Broker: Old-Fashioned Hero Whose Time Has Come."

When the body of a priest is found with the medallion of Saint Nicholas -- the patron saint of small children -- tucked into his mouth, former cop Phil Broker is recruited to stop a vigilante's murderous rage.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Logan's new police thriller, a sequel to Absolute Zero, has former cop Phil Broker on the hunt for "the Saint," a mysterious killer of suspected child molesters whose signature is a St. Nicholas medallion left in the mouths of his victims. The Saint's latest target, a Catholic priest, has fallen prey in the small town of Stillwater, Minn., where Broker, a retired cop who worked undercover for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, now lives. The local police chief lacks the manpower to marshal much of an investigation, so he hires Broker. Soon, Broker's instincts lead him to two prime suspects. One is Harry Cantrell, a notoriously violent cop and drunkard with a particular dislike for child molesters. The other is a prosecutor, the lithesome Gloria Russell, still seething over her courtroom defeat that let a child killer walk free. Also on Broker's mind is the fact that his estranged wife, an undercover government operative, has disappeared somewhere in Europe, along with their five-year-old daughter. Logan crafts his plot with vigor and clarity, setting up what initially looks like a predictable finale, then pulling the rug out from under readers. With rich characters, a voice of unhesitating assurance and a plot refreshingly free of gimmickry, Logan once again delivers good old-fashioned storytelling. Major ad/promo; 12-city author tour. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

When a priest is found shot to death in a church in Stillwater, MN, the sheriff calls on Phil Broker, Logan's recurring protagonist (Absolute Zero), to serve as special investigator. Broker discovers that the priest, who was found with a St. Christopher's medallion in his mouth, had been accused of child molestation but had been cleared of the charge. The medal is the calling card of the Saint, a vigilante who had shot another child molester a year earlier. Broker realizes that the Saint is back and is now killing people who have escaped justice. He must also find his old enemy, Harry Cantrell, a homicide detective who blames his wife's death on Broker. Drawing on the theme that justice sometimes fails, Logan clearly shows what the consequences are for the victims, the law enforcement officers, and the prosecutors. Along the way, he also reveals the personal lives of his characters and portrays the sometimes devastating impact of adult action on the lives of children. This novel has much more to say than the average thriller. For most popular fiction collections.-Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., OH Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews