Final Justice

This was the first and last Badge of Honor book I will force myself to finish. Written in present day Philadelphia, you'd think all cops, prosecuters and journalists are totally and best of friends without exception. The fair haired boy of the day, Matt Payne, is a newly promoted homicide sergeant from a family of cops. The bad guy is a homicidal psycopath that buys and sells classic cars across the country and rapes and murders women by night.
The book is totally weighed down by long explanations of police procedure and just plain filler. Mr. Griffin could have cut 150 pages from the book and had an interesting short thriller. I guess Mr. Griffin thinks books sell by the pound. I promise myself that this is the last Griffin book that show more I'll pick up. show less

8th in this series--as usual, you do not have had to read the preceding novels, as he more or less tells you everything that has happened so far,. That, in itself can be annoying for those of us who read serially. That said, this is the best of the series to date....everything revolves around Matt Payne and his new assignment as a Sgt detective.Payne's character has never seemed more real.. Major gaff: all of a sudden we have laptops, cellular phones and digital cameras which were not there before.but NOBODY is any older. I was enjoying the 1970s and we just added 25 years. As always, we (re)learn a lot about the inner workings of the Philadelphia PD. Mickey, the newspaper guy, also featured. Another beef: the story just ends.....again.

About the only thing I liked about this novel is that it took part in my home town of Philadelphia. Otherwise there was not much to like about Final Justice, a horribly long-winded, sometimes laughably silly novel that often reads like a police procedural. The protagonist in the story is Matt Payne, a detective in the Philadelphia Police Department who is recently promoted and transferred to homicide. The plot is all over the place as it jumps from an unsolvable killing in a fast food restaurant, an extradition case of a murder fugitive from France, which I’m pretty sure is based on a real life case, and an actor trying to get a close up work on real police work for a show that he is working on. The novel would have been much better show more (and shorter) is Griffin stuck to a single storyline, but he appears to have been paid by the word. There was little believability in the novel and it was often times hard to take seriously. As I got toward the end, I just want the novel to mercifully be over. Skip this one.

Carl Alves – author of Blood Street show less

Best of the series to date....everything culminates with the inclusion of what I consider the main character, Matt Payne. Great story, but Payne's character has never seemed more real than this book, and there are several points in the plot that are true page turning experiences.

I have been enjoying the Badge of Honor series, and was looking forward to this eighth and final book in the series, but I was disappointed somewhat. The previous book ended about six months before this onein the story time frame, but what a change in the story foundation. All of a sudden we have laptops, cellular phones and digital cameras which were not there before. It's almost like Griffin forgot the time frame that these books are supposed to be set in. I was also disappointed that I did not see much of some of my favouite characters like Inspector Peter Wohl, and the crew in Special Operations. There was no Dave Pekach except peripherally. The story was all about Matt Payne and his antics as he tracks down a serial rapist turned show more killer. Of course he gets involved in another gun fight too. I read these books for the characters though, and I just did not see them enough this time out. Since this is the last book in this up to now enjoyable series, I really missed that. show less

Eighth book in W.E.B. Griffin's Badge of Honor series
Philadelphia Detective Sergeant Matt Payne juggles multiple complex cases, including a fatal shooting, a murder-rape, and a cold case involving a taunting fugitive, all while dealing with personal pressures and the arrival of a self-absorbed movie star.

Read 12-14-2014