ABSOLUTE ZERO

Darn cold in those Minnesota northwoods, but as usual the action’s hot as Logan shows us for the fourth time why he’s a thrillermeister to keep (The Big Law, 1998, etc.).

Absolute zero is minus 459.67°F, or as someone says early on, “the temperature when everything stops.” But if you’re a substitute guide leading three ambitious amateurs on a hunting trip in the dead of winter, count on it being when a lot of bad stuff starts. Ex-cop Phil Broker, making his third starring appearance, has as his headstrong charges a brilliant surgeon, a shrewd lawyer, and a bestselling novelist who hates the books that have made him rich. A volatile enough mix, but the party holds its own until a blizzard—“an October surprise,” in northwoods speak—hits them hard, wrong-footing them and eventually dumping all four out of their canoes and into icy Lake Fraser. They escape death but narrowly: Hank Sommer, the writer, only after Allen Franken, the surgeon, operates successfully on him in the small, underequipped hospital they’re flown to after rescue. Successful, that is, until post-op. A nurse-anesthetist’s tragic mistake is what it’s called at first, the effect of it being to zap Hank into instant coma. At this point, enter Jolene, trophy wife with a past, on the edge of becoming a wealthy widow. The lawyer lusts for her, so does the surgeon, and not even our hero—though racked by woman troubles on his own home front—is immune to the former stripper’s earthy appeal. Hank lingers, the deathwatch generates bizarre behavior, and Broker begins to ask himself questions about when it is that an accident has the best chance of not having been one. Answer: when there’s money to follow.

Good writing, colorful cast, and a thoroughly appealing protagonist: a two-fisted softy perfect for page-turning.