Vapor Trail

Rating:
Summary: SAINTS AND SINNERS
Review: Broker's back and now instead of freezing to death, he's fiery hot in "Vapor Trail." You don't think of Minnesota having such tremendous heat waves, but like their winters, this one is excessive. The villain in this one is called "The Saint." He or she disposed of a known pedophile who got off on technicalities, taking justice into his or her hands. Now a year or so later, the Saint returns wiping out a priest who had been accused of fondling a teenage girl. She (we now know it's a she?) has a list of people she plans to dispose of, and thus the journey begins.
Throw in the cop who used to be Broker's friend, who is now an alcoholic and renegade, and who could possibly be the Saint; the ambitious attorney Gloria Russell, who has a picture of the young victim in her office; and Broker's ex-girlfriend, Janey, and you've got a potboiler going.
Logan agains masters his skill of believable characters, a strong feel for his surroundings and a great twist at the end. The identity of the Saint...ah, well, you just have to read it...great reading.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Rating:
Summary: SAINTS AND SINNERS
Review: Broker's back and now instead of freezing to death, he's fiery hot in "Vapor Trail." You don't think of Minnesota having such tremendous heat waves, but like their winters, this one is excessive. The villain in this one is called "The Saint." He or she disposed of a known pedophile who got off on technicalities, taking justice into his or her hands. Now a year or so later, the Saint returns wiping out a priest who had been accused of fondling a teenage girl. She (we now know it's a she?) has a list of people she plans to dispose of, and thus the journey begins.
Throw in the cop who used to be Broker's friend, who is now an alcoholic and renegade, and who could possibly be the Saint; the ambitious attorney Gloria Russell, who has a picture of the young victim in her office; and Broker's ex-girlfriend, Janey, and you've got a potboiler going.
Logan agains masters his skill of believable characters, a strong feel for his surroundings and a great twist at the end. The identity of the Saint...ah, well, you just have to read it...great reading.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Rating:
Summary: Logan scores again
Review: Chuck Logan is one of those rare talents that just keep getting better as they go, even though they started off with a bang. You can read any of his first novels, and get the same feeling that he's been there, lived it, and has inherited the story-teller's gene needed to make it real for the reader. Great, believable characters, incisive writing, a very much appreciated brevity of language, and intelligent plots grace all of his books. I read an earlier review that panned "VAPOR TRAIL" based on a lack of descriptive prose about Stillwater, Minnesota. Time to read some nonfiction, pal. I read Chuck Logan and John Sanford for gripping suspense, action, humor, and, HELLOOOOO, entertainment, not for a lesson in geography.
Well, "Vapor Trail" has it all, in spades, ( as they say), and I enjoyed it tremendously!
One thing more....Logan is on my very short list of authors that I'll buy without bothering to read the blurb on the back page. He writes it, I'll enjoy it. Buy "Vapor Trail" without reservations. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: A cross between "Dirty Harry" and Sandford's Prey novels.
Review: I chose to read VAPOR TRAIL because of the Stillwater, Minnesota, setting. Stillwater is one of the oldest and most charming cities in Minnesota. It's also home to the state prison, where Cole Younger and his brothers spent twenty-five years for the Northfield bank robbery.
The setting might as well have been Winona or Mankato for all the use Logan makes of this potentially fascinating site. VAPOR TRAIL is pretty much a conventional thriller, with the emphasis on pace at the expense of characterization. I refer to Dirty Harry because the plot sounds suspiciously like one of the latter movies where a rogue cop decides to take the law into his own hands.
Logan is also rather amateurish in spots. For instance, he uses the mirror cliche to describe his main character. I was surprised to see this used as a sample in the review I read in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. To compound the felony, Logan compares his characters to celebrities. One of the protagonist's many former girlfriends is referred to as a Mitzi Gaynor type. But probably the most outrageous stunt was to have Lucas Davenport make a cameo appearance at the scene of one of the murders. For those who aren't John Sandford fans, Lucas is the lead character in the Prey novels. (Sandford provides a blurb on the dust jacket.)
Despite all of these transgressions, I was rather impressed with the ending. Logan keeps us guessing throughout as to who the woman is who's been killing off sexual predators. We think it's the prosecuting attorney, but Logan pulls off a rather nifty switcheroo at the end. I hadn't even thought of who it turned out to be.

Rating:
Summary: Quite a few loose ends in this one.
Review: I found that this thriller left quite a few loose unexplained threads when the story ended. I liked Broker, and think he has possibility to be a good main character, but I found that he wasn't actually shown in the best light in this one. He was hired on as a special consultant to find the person who is going around killing presumed pedophiles. He does some preliminary background checks, but I found he really didn't follow up on a lot of the information that he supposedly got. He seemed to be along for the ride when the plot stepped up and got there more or less by accident when things started happening. Too many loose ends to mention without giving the story away, so not, I'm afraid, my favourite thriller.

Rating:
Summary: exciting police procedural thriller
Review: Last year in Stillwater, Minnesota, elementary school teacher Ronald Dolman was put on trial for molesting six-year-old Tommy Horrigan but despite the overwhelming evidence against him, the jury voted to acquit him. Somebody took the law into their own hands and murdered Ronald, an action the media and the public approved of wholeheartedly calling him or her "The Saint". A year later "The Saint" kills a priest in the confession booth because he was supposedly molesting little boys.

Sheriff John Eisenhower deputizes private investigator Phil Broker (see ABSOLUTE ZERO) so that he can legally question Harry Cantrell who he suspects of knowing the identity of the Saint. After Phil gets the information from Harry, he is supposed to escort the policeman to a detox facility. Harry doesn't intend to make life easy for Broker who he holds responsible for the death of his wife and the Saint is not making it easy for the police. She has gone from vigilante to serial killer: methodical, organized and deadly.

Author Chuck Logan has written an exciting police procedural thriller starring a protagonist whom tries to work on the right side of the law even when it cost him his friendship with Harry. The plot is full of red herrings, misdirection and unexpected twists and turns making VAPOR TRAIL an exciting roller coasters ride of suspense. The author ensures that the reader will read his next book by telling the audience where the hero's daughter can be found.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A Different Season
Review: Teddy Roosevelt said that the Badlands look like Edgar Allan Poe sounds. This reviewer says that Chuck Logan writes like a river - beautifully flowing and yet prone to rapid and violent tempests.

Logan's Phil Broker is back. This time, it's summer - and those 10,000 Lakes, the headwaters of the Mississippi, and other ponds and streams make Minnesota one huge humidified hothouse. Minnesota native Logan says of our seismic seasonal temperature shifts: out in the winter snow, shock could be a sheet of fire. Now, in this heat, it wrapped him in cold shivers.

This encounter with Broker - on the trail of "the Saint," a vigilante assassin out stalking and slaying those suspected of child predation and abuse -
is indeed a tantalizing chill-producing shocker. Reviewed by TundraVision

Rating:
Summary: A solid mystery
Review: This is a very straightforward, compelling mystery/police novel. The characters are well developed and the story moves along at a quick pace. There is not a lot of superfluous exposition in Mr. Logan's novels. He writes about characters and plot and his stories are interesting and easy to read.