From Publishers Weekly
Logan's last two books featuring Phil Broker have emphasized extreme weather conditions: Phil broiled in Vapor Trail, froze in Absolute Zero, and incessant rain is the key to this fifth thriller in an outstanding series. Phil's estranged wife, army Maj. Nina Pryce, is back in the U.S. and involved in a high stakes antiterrorist mission with crusty old ex-Special Forces Col. Holland Wood and lesbian warrior Jane Singer. Their lead is a name, Ace Shuster, who turns out to be a likable ne'er-do-well North Dakotan who runs a small liquor-smuggling operation. Nina's assignment is to romance Ace until he spills the beans. Phil—ex-cop, ex-soldier and all-around knight-errant—is drawn in because it's a righteous cause, and Nina still looks pretty damn good to him. The pace is rather stately until the rain stops, then the plot picks up speed until all concerned are racing toward a confrontation involving the destruction of a large chunk of American real estate and the citizens thereon. It's an unbeatable combination: a smart, well-honed plot, fascinating characters (including a Lebanese sleeper spy, various local smugglers and a sexually deviant psycho-killer) and a writer with an original voice and the prose skills to tie it all together. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Publishers Weekly
"An unbeatable combination: a smart, well-honed plot, fascinating characters and a writer with [the] skills to tie it together."


St. Paul Pioneer Press
"Chuck Logan at his adventurous best, creating vivid characters and putting them in nail-biting action."


Fargo Forum
"A fast-paced action thriller [and] a credible and terrifying story."


Kansas City Star
"Logan knows how to write international intrigue and suspense."


Chicago Tribune
"If you like your thrillers hard [and] tough … then Chuck Logan’s books ... cry out for addition to your bookbag."


Washington Post
"Hard-edged and gripping ... The nuclear plot is ingenious and its final countdown is a nail-biter."


Tampa Tribune
"The book simply can’t be put down....Thrillers don’t get any more up to date than this nail-biter."


Philadelphia Inquirer
"Suspenseful [and] forceful.... Logan is a crafty storyteller."


Denver Post
"Tantalizing....A frighteningly plausible thriller, one that hits close to home."


Book Description

Headlights off, a panel truck drives by moonlight across an open field, following tracks that have been there for decades ...

Nina Pryce and her husband, Phil Broker, couldn't have more opposite views of the military. Broker's loyalty to the men he served with in Vietnam is matched only by his certainty that they shouldn't have been there in the first place. Nina, though, is a new breed, a decorated and ambitious vet of the first Gulf War. As Nina proceeds along her chosen career path, Broker -- until his recent "retirement," Minnesota's most effective, unorthodox, and controversial undercover cop -- finds himself struggling in the role of patient military spouse.

The driver is a local entrepreneur taking advantage of a decades-old tradition of smuggling and bootlegging by crossing a border too vast and undermanned to be effectively patrolled ...

Incommunicado for months as part of a top-secret Delta anti-terrorist operation, Nina, with daughter Kit in tow, suddenly emerges in Langdon, North Dakota, a town in the heart of the Cold War Minuteman II missile belt. When Broker arrives to take Kit back home, he realizes that the legacy of those warheads still casts a sinister shadow across the desolate north border country, in the person of a damaged psychopath.

Somewhere in the middle of this empty field he will cross, undetected, from one side of the U.S.-Canada divide to the other. He and his cargo -- illegal cigars, whiskey, machine parts, or something much more terrifying -- thus slip undetected across the longest undefended border in the world.

Broker discovers he's been drawn into an elaborate con within a con, made an unwitting participant in a black-bag anti-terrorist detail. But his anger toward Nina for involving him and putting their daughter at risk quickly fades as a larger, more deadly reality becomes evident. With time running out, husband and wife unite with local North Dakota law enforcement to form a last line of defense against a brilliantly simple act of espionage with potentially catastrophic consequences.


Download Description
"E-Book Extra: Chuck Logan's extended author biography

Headlights off, a panel truck drives by moonlight across an open field, following tracks that have been there for decades ...

Nina Pryce and her husband, Phil Broker, couldn't have more opposite views of the military. Broker's loyalty to the men he served with in Vietnam is matched only by his certainty that they shouldn't have been there in the first place. Nina, though, is a new breed, a decorated and ambitious vet of the first Gulf War. As Nina proceeds along her chosen career path, Broker -- until his recent ""retirement,"" Minnesota's most effective, unorthodox, and controversial undercover cop -- finds himself struggling in the role of patient military spouse.

The driver is a local entrepreneur taking advantage of a decades-old tradition of smuggling and bootlegging by crossing a border too vast and undermanned to be effectively patrolled ...

Incommunicado for months as part of a top-secret Delta anti-terrorist operation, Nina, with daughter Kit in tow, suddenly emerges in Langdon, North Dakota, a town in the heart of the Cold War Minuteman II missile belt. When Broker arrives to take Kit back home, he realizes that the legacy of those warheads still casts a sinister shadow across the desolate north border country, in the person of a damaged psychopath.

Somewhere in the middle of this empty field he will cross, undetected, from one side of the U.S.-Canada divide to the other. He and his cargo - illegal cigars, whiskey, machine parts, or something much more terrifying - thus slip undetected across the longest undefended border in the world.


About the Author
Chuck Logan is a war baby, born in Chicago a week after the Battle of Midway, in June, 1942. He knows little about his father. His parents split up when he was an infant. He knows his father's real name was Utecht, that he was a professional boxer, trainer and promoter in Chicago and that he took Logan as a ring name. According to the family story, his mom was not real comfortable with her husband's drinking and his involvement with criminal elements around the fight game. Logan's mom encouraged him to read and draw and hoped he'd become an artist. But in 1950-51 she enrolled him as a 3rd grade cadet at Georgia Military Academy in College Park, Georgia. Memories from GMA include one 8-year-old classmate crying himself to sleep when his dad was killed in Korea. He also recalls teaching himself to draw copying Joe and Willie out of Bill Mauldin's classic book of WW II cartoons, Up Front. Logan's mom decided to move from Michigan to Arizona in July, 1953. Driving during a rainstorm near Marion, Kentucky, the car swerved on slick pavement, went off the road and hit a guardrail next to a swamp. The backseat was stacked with heavy boxes of Encyclopedias and Logan's Junior Classics. The books drove the seats forward. Logan's mom hit the steering column with great force and was killed. He was catapulted through the windshield into the muddy water where he fortunately landed on his back. Battered from the impact, choking on his blood and unable to move, he survived by regulating his breathing to remain afloat until help arrived. Logan carries the crude tattoo -- 777 -- on his left forearm as a reminder of that night; July, 7th, 7:00 pm. He spent 3 years living with an aunt and uncle in Inspiration, Bowie and Superior, Arizona. Then he was shifted to another aunt for high school in Warren Michigan, a blue collar suburb of Detroit. It was the first time he'd ever spent more than one year in a school. He was not allowed to play sports because athletic ability had been his dad's downfall. Obedient to his guardian's wishes, he attended her non-denominational, fundamentalist church four times a week for four years. The night he turned 18, he walked. After taking the entrance exam to get into Wayne State University in inner city Detroit, he attended Monteith College, part of Wayne State. Monteith offered an experimental curriculum funded by the Ford Foundation whose mission was to expose a random sample of working class youth to a highly accelerated liberal arts program. Wayne State had a nationally ranked debate squad and fencing team. Logan was kicked off both of them for drinking. He flunked out of school and matriculated into Detroit's auto factories, police rosters and bars until he volunteered for the draft in 1967. (Ethical dilemma: against the war, didn't want someone else going in his place.) In 1968, he volunteered for the paratroops, a sure ticket to Vietnam, and served 13 months carrying the radio for several small advisory teams; mainly in Dong Ha District in northern Quang Tri Province. He went into Vietnam without illusions, knowing it was bad history but in the end preferring the company of those who went to those who didn't. He earned a Combat Infantry Badge and a Bronze Star for valor. In 1969 he migrated to Minnesota where he drew cartoons in the antiwar vets movement and finally sobered up. In 1975 he was hired as a staff artist at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. In 1985 he started writing. His Detroit novel and his Vietnam novel didn't sell. His hunting buddy John Camp, a reporter in the St. Paul newsroom whose crime novels (written under the name John Sandford) were taking up permanent residence on the best seller list, suggested that Logan back off the ponderous literary stuff and write a thriller. Logan published his first book, Hunter's Moon, in 1996. He hasn't had a drink in 29 years, is married for the 3rd time and lives with his wife and daughter in Stillwater, Minnesota. His first four novels received consecutive starred reviews in Publisher's Weekly, which also called his new novel, After the Rain -- the fifth featuring protagonist Phil Broker -- "An unbeatable combination: a smart, well-honed plot, fascinating characters and a writer with an original voice and the prose skills to tie it all together."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Nina Pryce and her husband, Phil Broker, couldn't have more opposite views of the military. Broker's loyalty to the men he served with in Vietnam is matched only by his certainty that they shouldn't have been there in the first place. Nina, though, is a new breed, a decorated and ambitious vet of the first Gulf War. As Nina proceeds along her chosen career path, Broker - until his recent "retirement," Minnesota's most effective, unorthodox, and controversial undercover cop - finds himself struggling in the role of patient military spouse." "Incommunicado for months as part of a top-secret Delta anti-terrorist operation, Nina, with daughter Kit in tow, suddenly emerges in Langdon, North Dakota, a town in the heart of the Cold War Minuteman II missile belt. When Broker arrives to take Kit back home, he realizes that the legacy of those warheads still casts a sinister shadow across the desolate north border country, in the person of a damaged psychopath." Broker discovers he's been drawn into an elaborate con within a con, made an unwitting participant in a black-bag anti-terrorist detail. But his anger toward Nina for involving him and putting their daughter at risk quickly fades as a larger, more deadly reality becomes evident. With time running out, husband and wife unite with local North Dakota law enforcement to form a last line of defense against a brilliantly simple act of espionage with potentially catastrophic consequences.

FROM THE CRITICS

Patrick Anderson - The Washington Post

In telling all this, Logan does many things well. The beauty and desolation of North Dakota are palpable. The characters are sharply drawn and often surprising, the story is suspenseful, the dialogue is crisp. The nuclear plot is ingenious and its final countdown is a nail-biter. And Pryce is surely one of the more formidable women in current fiction.

Publishers Weekly

An anti-terrorist Delta force, operating in such covert isolation that practically no one knows about them (and those who do will deny it) discovers a plot to detonate a nuclear device smuggled across the Canadian border into North Dakota in Logan's latest high-stakes thriller (after Absolute Zero). Tough-talking, good-looking Gulf War veteran Maj. Nina Pryce sets out to seduce the alleged bomb smuggler while her estranged husband, ex-cop Phil Broker, and their seven-year-old daughter get drawn into the suspenseful special forces sting. Narrator Conway's smooth growl of a voice, reminiscent of a chain-smoker's, successfully captures the raw reality that the team is up against, making him the ideal narrator for this tale. Surprisingly, his hardened tone even works for the story's female characters, though it doesn't hurt that they are all dyed-in-the-wool military types who are willing to rip the enemy's throat out with their teeth-and that they heartily pass around packs of smokes. Conway's intense yet quiet delivery is well-timed, confident and just as precise as Logan's prose. Simultaneous release with the HarperCollins hardcover (Forecasts, May 17). (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Of course Phil Broker is going after his estranged wife, Delta Force operator Nina, who is kidnapped by a sociopath while running an unorthodox undercover operation across the Canadian boarder. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews