Rating: 
Summary: Nothing much final in this one.
Review: After reading and re-reading all three series William E. Butterworth III has written under the W.E.B. Griffin name (Honor Bound is a re-issue from his Alex Baldwin name) and enjoying all of them, I find this one has built me up for a big let-down.
If I was new to the series I probably wouldn't have read this one all the way through - my curiosity about the characters developed over the preceding 7 books kept me reading. There isn't a whole lot of tension or suspense. There are story elements that seem to cry for expansion or follow-up but are left to just sit there. Various story lines are continued or started but few are resolved; the ending leaves an annoying number of them hanging, either waiting for a sequel or leaving the future to the imagination of the reader.
I'll read the sequel, if there is one. The author will be 74 this year and I wish him good health so he can write another 20 or 30 books in the three series. My on-going curiosity and my innate desire for resolution of situations and purposeful sub-plots will keep me reading whatever he writes but I am disappointed in this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining Police Procedural
Review: Author of numerous military novels, W.E.B. Griffin continues in his ever-popular Badge of Honor Series with this latest tale of newly minted Sergeant Matt Payne of the Philadelphia P.D.'s Homicide Division. Though he never knew his biological father, a cop who was killed in the line of duty, Matt wants to follow in his footsteps after earning his degree at University of Pennsylvania. Nicknamed, 'The Wyatt Earp of the Main Line' for his repeated involvement in shooting incidents, Matt finds himself assigned to investigate the apparent rape/murder of a young woman. Well-versed in the internal workings of The Philadelphia Police Department, Mr. Griffin can quote both statutes and correct police procedure. While admittedly the reading of such can be extremely dry, Griffin has integrated statutory law into the fast paced story line involving the meshing of the lives of the members of the P.P.D. As Matt investigates the young woman's murder, he also becomes apprised of a fast food robbery gone badly and the parallel to real life tale of a convicted murderer's extradition from France. Though Matt's intelligence earns him promotion to sergeant, his connections to the hierarchy of the P.P.D., through his powerful attorney stepfather, make for interesting interaction between the mayor and various police commissioners. And let's not forget young Payne's sexual escapades with an attractive female and detective to his association with a film's star's pretty assistant. Teeming with accurate details and plenty of interdepartmental rivalries, Mr. Griffin's latest is a thrill ride from the get go. W.E.B. Griffin is quickly proving himself the one of the foremost authors of police procedurals of the twenty-first century. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition
Rating:
Summary: Final Justice: A Badge of Honor Novel
Review: Author of numerous military novels, W.E.B. Griffin continues in his ever-popular Badge of Honor Series with this latest tale of newly minted Sergeant Matt Payne of the Philadelphia P.D.�s Homicide Division. Though he never knew his biological father, a cop who was killed in the line of duty, Matt wants to follow in his footsteps after earning his degree at University of Pennsylvania. Nicknamed, �The Wyatt Earp of the Main Line� for his repeated involvement in shooting incidents, Matt finds himself assigned to investigate the apparent rape/murder of a young woman. Well-versed in the internal workings of The Philadelphia Police Department, Mr. Griffin can quote both statutes and correct police procedure. While admittedly the reading of such can be extremely dry, Griffin has integrated statutory law into the fast paced story line involving the meshing of the lives of the members of the P.P.D. As Matt investigates the young woman�s murder, he also becomes apprised of a fast food robbery gone badly and the parallel to real life tale of a convicted murderer�s extradition from France. Though Matt�s intelligence earns him promotion to sergeant, his connections to the hierarchy of the P.P.D., through his powerful attorney stepfather, make for interesting interaction between the mayor and various police commissioners. And let�s not forget young Payne�s sexual escapades with an attractive female and detective to his association with a film�s star�s pretty assistant. Teeming with accurate details and plenty of interdepartmental rivalries, Mr. Griffin�s latest is a thrill ride from the get go. W.E.B. Griffin is quickly proving himself the one of the foremost authors of police procedurals of the twenty-first century.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than McBain's police novels
Review: Griffin skillfully weaves three major police investigations into his story of Detective Matt Payne's involvment in these cases as a member of the Philadelphis PD.
As a former law enforcement officer, I found Griffin's narrative realistic in his development of clues to lead his police characters to the perpertrators of two of the crimes.
In one of the cases, a lt. of detectives decides to go over the same evidence and the scene in a shooting and robbery at a fast food restaurant. His dogged investigative approach turns up a baseball cap which was overlooked initially and eventually is a key in solving the case because of a partial finger print left on the cap.
While Payne is portrayed as a sort of super cop, Griffin also shows his weakness as a human being caused by the stress of his job and private life.
Griffin obviously acquired an intimate knowledge of how a big city PD works, and he passes on this information to the readers without the tedious manner of McBain in his books.
There is also a fascinating number of characters inside and outside of the PD to entertain and interest readers.
It is a great book for anyone who likes a book with an interesting, realistic, and entertaining police story. There are 466 pages in this book and at first I thought I might not finish reading it. But I found it one of those books you hate to put down and I kept returing to because of the story and the author's easy style of telling the story.
Rating:
Summary: Better than McBain's police novels
Review: Griffin skillfully weaves three major police investigations into his story of Detective Matt Payne's involvment in these cases as a member of the Philadelphis PD.
As a former law enforcement officer, I found Griffin's narrative realistic in his development of clues to lead his police characters to the perpertrators of two of the crimes.
In one of the cases, a lt. of detectives decides to go over the same evidence and the scene in a shooting and robbery at a fast food restaurant. His dogged investigative approach turns up a baseball cap which was overlooked initially and eventually is a key in solving the case because of a partial finger print left on the cap.
While Payne is portrayed as a sort of super cop, Griffin also shows his weakness as a human being caused by the stress of his job and private life.
Griffin obviously acquired an intimate knowledge of how a big city PD works, and he passes on this information to the readers without the tedious manner of McBain in his books.
There is also a fascinating number of characters inside and outside of the PD to entertain and interest readers.
It is a great book for anyone who likes a book with an interesting, realistic, and entertaining police story. There are 466 pages in this book and at first I thought I might not finish reading it. But I found it one of those books you hate to put down and I kept returing to because of the story and the author's easy style of telling the story.
Rating:
Summary: Go With The Flow
Review: Hey, Griffin fans, let's lighten up. This is a cop novel, not holy writ. If you've enjoyed Griffin's earlier novels, and can relax and enjoy his characters' adventures (professional and personal), you'll enjoy this book a lot. If you're tracking who had what rank and what color car in earlier books in the series, then this book may puzzle you. Me? I enjoy Griffin, not exegesis. (I gave the book 4 rather than 5 stars because I thought it left too many loose ends.)
Rating:
Summary: 8th book suffers from time-line change, inconsistencies
Review: I had been waiting eagerly for an eighth book in the "Badge of Honor" series for a few years now. I'd figured Griffin would continue the series by skipping ahead a few months and picking up the action somewhere in the mid-1970s, where the seventh book left off. What I wasn't expecting was a book that's written with the main characters being the same ages as they were before, but the book's action taking place in the present. Griffin has skipped ahead through nearly 30 years of time but clearly states several times throughout the book that only a few months (possibly up to six) have passed since the action of the seventh book ended. This means that characters now are constantly using cell phones, which are common nowadays but were nonexistent when the series left off in book 7 -- and which they never used in the books up to and including the seventh. It means characters drive cars and trucks that are mentioned by explicit make and model and that exist only now, but were unheard of (even undreamed of) in the 1970s (think SUVs). I also found jarring the fact that many key players from previous books are absent, without explicit explanations for the changes. For example, Jerry Carlucci, the mayor of Philadelphia through the first seven books, is gone. He's mentioned once or twice, but he's no longer the mayor. I remember a brief mention that indicated he may have been elected to the US Senate, but in the previous books he was always concerned with RE-ELECTION, not with election to an entirely different level of government. Similarly, the police commissioner is gone (a bit more easily explained, as that's a political appointment and the commissioner serves at the mayor's pleasure); the district attorney is gone; and a few other characters suffer similar fates. Finally, the book is [filled] with errors of continuity. Matt Payne's elimination from the Marine Corps is explained in this book as a problem with his ear; in the first seven books, it was a problem with his eye. He was only promoted to detective a short time before his promotion to sergeant in the eighth book, and the series has made it plain that such promotion opprotunities rest on passing of examinations that are held only every couple of years, and that not everyone qualifies even to take those tests each time. So Payne's somewhat stellar rise through the ranks goes against the procedures and standards Griffin has described in the series up to and including the seventh book. One character who was explicitly removed from the police force is back in this book: Wilson Carter. In the fifth book, he left the police force; now he's a sergeant and there's no indication he was ever out of the Highway Patrol. All that said, I found the book to be an engaging read. Griffin's style always engages me, and though I do often find a lot of his dialog difficult to believe (I doubt people really talk like the characters in his book), I usually finish the books within a day or two. This one took me a week because I read it during a vacation, and only a few dozen pages at a time. And it ended very abruptly, which I'm sure is meant to set up another book, but it left me unsatisfied.
Rating:
Summary: Holy leaping time warp Batman!
Review: I had really been looking forward to this book!!! I even bought the hardcover copy!!! That said, I was kind've disappointed when the unexplained time warp propelled Mat Payne and his cohort into the present day. To be honest, I was looking forward to seeing Matt Payne develop over a 20 year period or so.
Now, he is in present-day Philly, so I guess his development will carry him into the year 2020, 2030, etc. (Barring another unexplained time warp!)
Personally, I love the W.E.B Griffin novels! I adore the Brotherhood of War series! I loved The Corp series! Plus, I really got into The Badge of Honor series. I really liked some parts of Final Justice, and was confused by other parts. A new mayor??? I liked Jerry Carlucci! I wanted to know what happened to him! (If the book tells us, I guess I missed it!) I wish I could talk to Mr. Griffin about this in person, but I'm really starting to think that there is more than one "Mr. Griffin". That may explain some of the continuity problems over several series of books!
Rating:
Summary: Could have been excellent
Review: I have been a loyal reader of Griffin since being introduced to his Brotherhood of War series in the late 80's, and have personally corrupted over a dozen others into an addiction of his books. I am among the many who have waited for January to roll around so I can pick up his latest novel the day it comes out, no matter which series it belongs to. That being established, I must say that this latest installment in the Badge of Honor series has caused me to wonder what drugs Griffin has been taking! Yanking his characters out of 1975 and inserting them into 2002 while still maintaining the outdated chauvinism of the males is about the dumbist thing I have heard of in literature. Especially since his novels are supposed to be "real life" fiction, not science fiction. If Mr. Griffin had been bored with the Phily PD of the 1970's and wanted to write a modern day PD novel with new characters, I would have been pleased- especially so if he had incorporated his previous characters as 25 years older and wiser senior officers. However, warping a 26 year old character (or 27, who the heck knows since he is supposed to be 4 years younger than his step sister, who is perpetually 28 despite everyone else's aging throughout the series,)and the rest of the cast into the 21st century and expecting to have his readership buy the time warp was worse than a stretch of author's licence. It was a violation of the trust of his fans. As one who has purchased each one of his books and suffered through inconsistencies of "stunning brunette's" morphing into "gorgeous blondes" between books, and of characters who have never met making comments like "Yea, we are old friends" it really is the last straw to realize you have spent over $160 on his novels for this series alone only to be served up with this garbage. For me, this was the final injustice.
Rating: 
Summary: Final Justice? I don't think so.
Review: I have been a loyal reader of Griffin since being introduced to his Brotherhood of War series in the late 80's, and have personally corrupted over a dozen others into an addiction of his books. I am among the many who have waited for January to roll around so I can pick up his latest novel the day it comes out, no matter which series it belongs to. That being established, I must say that this latest installment in the Badge of Honor series has caused me to wonder what drugs Griffin has been taking! Yanking his characters out of 1975 and inserting them into 2002 while still maintaining the outdated chauvinism of the males is about the dumbist thing I have heard of in literature. Especially since his novels are supposed to be "real life" fiction, not science fiction. If Mr. Griffin had been bored with the Phily PD of the 1970's and wanted to write a modern day PD novel with new characters, I would have been pleased- especially so if he had incorporated his previous characters as 25 years older and wiser senior officers. However, warping a 26 year old character (or 27, who the heck knows since he is supposed to be 4 years younger than his step sister, who is perpetually 28 despite everyone else's aging throughout the series,)and the rest of the cast into the 21st century and expecting to have his readership buy the time warp was worse than a stretch of author's licence. It was a violation of the trust of his fans. As one who has purchased each one of his books and suffered through inconsistencies of "stunning brunette's" morphing into "gorgeous blondes" between books, and of characters who have never met making comments like "Yea, we are old friends" it really is the last straw to realize you have spent over $160 on his novels for this series alone only to be served up with this garbage. For me, this was the final injustice.
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