THE BIG LAW

THE BIG LAW Chuck Logan (Harper Collins, $24) Though it sounds like an old TV Western, and the plot spans both the FBI and the Russian mob, this follow-up to The Price of Blood is as character-driven a thriller as you're likely to find. The diaper-changing routine of undercover cop-turned-Mr. Mom Phil Broker is first disrupted by a call for help from his ex-wife. Then a chain of events involving stolen cash, murder, and a killer camouflaged in the Witness Protection Program draws him out of his domestic furlough. Logan makes strong use of his setting, a Minnesota as physically and spiritually glacial as The Ice Storm's Connecticut wasteland. It's a backdrop well suited to this story of the chilling desperation that turns a normal heart to crime. B+ -- Charles Winecoff