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HOMEFRONT by Chuck Logan

HOMEFRONT

by Chuck Logan

Pub Date: July 1st, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-057020-2
Publisher: HarperCollins

Ex-cop Phil Broker (After the Rain, 2004, etc.) goes for needed peace and quiet to Minnesota’s backwoods, where an old enemy goes for Broker.

The remote resort of Glacier Falls seems ideal for what ails the Broker family, in particular Major Nina Pryce, Broker’s formidable wife. Usually formidable, that is. At the moment, in the aftermath of a bloody shootout that ended the life of her partner and very nearly her own, she’s suffering both physically (shattered shoulder) and emotionally (shattered psyche). It’s the latter condition that prompted Broker to seek the therapy of new, underpopulated surroundings. Even in Glacier Falls, however, trouble homes in on the family. It starts with a mundane schoolyard incident involving Kit, Broker’s eight-year-old daughter, and escalates in a hurry. Teddy Klumpe, ranking bully of Glacier Elementary, steals Kit’s gloves, then shoves her about in order to underscore his higher place in the natural order of things. He gets his nose solidly punched in retaliation. Young Klumpe complains to Daddy. Daddy Klumpe, intimidatingly large, thinks it behooves him to make the father atone for the sins of the daughter and takes a swing at Broker, who puts him down with humiliating ease. That sets off a chain of events leading eventually to Danny Turrie, a convicted murderer currently doing life in Stillwater Prison. Jailed he may be, but Turrie has friends—plus an unrelenting hate for his beloved son’s killer, a man whose identity has remained a mystery until now. The information goes in, and Turrie reaches out: an ice-eyed, extraordinarily adept gunman finds his way to Glacier Falls. He’s looking for Broker.

Gratuitous flashbacks slow the pace from time to time, but Logan writes well, and his people grab hard.