Final Justice [Large Print] [Hardcover]

W. E. B. Griffin (Author)

Book Description

Series: Thorndike Core - Large Print | Publication Date: July 2, 2003

A New York Times Bestseller

Detective Matt Payne of the Philadelphia police department finds himself in the middle of three major assignments. The first case is a fatal shooting at a fast-food restaurant; the second, a rape that tumbled into murder. The third, and most bizarre, involves a local figure who long ago fled the country, leaving behind the mummified body of his girlfriend.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

That there's an Establishment in any big city cop shop is no surprise, but the pols, police, press, and prosecutors who hang out together in W.E.B. Griffin's Philadelphia are so tightly connected that there's hardly any room to breathe in this Badge of Honor thriller. While a couple of minor characters from outside this old-boys’ network make a few cursory appearances, plus the obligatory perp, it's mostly an inside story about golden boy Matt Payne, Main Line scion and third generation cop who's just been promoted to Homicide, and his mentors, friends, and family. The perp is a clever psychopath who rapes and murders his way across country while he's buying and selling exotic cars. Griffin fills in the story with plenty of carefully detailed department procedures in this newest in one of his many bestselling series (Honor Bound, Men at War, Brotherhood of War, The Corps). Justice triumphs and, of course, there's plenty of hero worship and not a flawed cop on the force, which won't surprise or displease the author's legion of true blue fans. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

If God is truly in the details, then Griffin must be the pope of police procedurals. Want to know what paragraph of the Pennsylvania Criminal Code you violate if you use a flashing blue light attached to your car to get through traffic? Or what the chances are of a patrolman or detective passing the Philadelphia Police Department's exam for promotion to sergeant? Or what happens to the badge worn on the chest of an officer killed in action, after the funeral? All of this-and much, much more-is revealed in the eighth data-heavy entry in Griffin's Badge of Honor series (The Murderers, The Investigators, etc.). What's even more amazing is that all these factoids don't slow down the story's considerable momentum for a minute. Nor do they keep Griffin's gritty cops from convincing us of their individuality. Matt Payne, a detective with the Philadelphia police force, has just been promoted and transferred to Homicide. The cases he gets during his first few days at the post are a rich mix of mayhem entangling all strata of Philadelphia society: an apparently simple shooting in a fast food outlet that turns out to be almost unsolvable; a savage rape and murder with some serious anti-cop political overtones; an extradition case involving a fugitive murderer from France; and, for comic relief, the supervision of a visiting movie star who wants to make his police pictures more authentic. What holds it all together is Griffin's infectious respect for and fascination with police work.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 782 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press; 1 edition (July 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786255714
• ISBN-13: 978-0786255719
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,690,047 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

W.E.B. Griffin is the author of more than thirty epic novels in five series, all of which have been listed on The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly and other best-seller lists. More than forty million of his books are in print in more than ten languages, including Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, and Hungarian. Mr. Griffin grew up in the suburbs of New York City and Philadelphia. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1946. After basic training, he received counter-intelligence training at Fort Holabird, Maryland. He was assigned to the Army of Occupation in Germany, and ultimately to the staff of then-Major General I.D. White, commander of the U.S. Constabulary. In 1951, Mr. Griffin was recalled to active duty for the Korean War, interrupting his education at Phillips University, Marburg an der Lahn, Germany. In Korea he earned the Combat Infantry Badge as a combat correspondent and later served as acting X Corps (Group) information officer under Lieutenant General White. On his release from active duty in 1953, Mr. Griffin was appointed Chief of the Publications Division of the U.S. Army Signal Aviation Test & Support Activity at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Mr. Griffin is a member of the Special Operations Association, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, the Army Aviation Association, and the Armor Association. He was the 1991 recipient of the Brigadier General Robert L. Dening Memorial Distinguished Service Award of the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association, and the August 1999 recipient of the Veterans of Foreign Wars News Media Award, presented at the 100th National Convention in Kansas City. He has been vested into the Order of St. George of the U.S. Armor Association, and the Order of St. Andrew of the U.S. Army Aviation Association, and been awarded Honorary Doctoral degrees by Norwich University, the nation's first and oldest private military college, and by Troy State University (Ala.). He was the graduation dinner speaker for the class of 1988 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He has been awarded honorary membership in the Special Forces Association; the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association; the Marine Raiders Association; and the U.S. Army Otter & Caribou Association. He is the co-founder, with historian Colonel Carlo D'Este, of the William E. Colby Seminar on Intelligence, Military, and Diplomatic Affairs. Mr. Griffin's novels, known for their historical accuracy, have been praised by The Philadelphia Inquirer for their "fierce, stop-for-nothing scenes." "Nothing honors me more than a serviceman, veteran, or cop telling me he enjoys reading my books," Mr. Griffin says. Mr. Griffin divides his time between the Gulf Coast and Buenos Aires.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Where was the editor?, April 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Final Justice (Hardcover)

W.E.B. Griffin's books, while captivating reads, have frequently suffered from inconsistencies from one book to the next. This has often been a result of his detailed summaries, often including dialogue, of events from previous books. Among the Griffin fans with whom I've chatted, this is the most commonly cited complaint.

The newest entry in the Badge of Honor series is the most extreme example. As many other reviewers have pointed out, the setting is jarringly moved from the mid 1970s to the present day. Characters are missing with little explanation. However, the Badge of Honor series has been suffering through the last few entries. Significant subplots have been developed only to drop out of the series. Two previous books have had significant subplots surrounding slayings of police officers, but these have sunk without a trace. And of course, the last book developed the idea that the crack Narcotics 5 squad was crooked, giving every suggestion that book number 8 would be based on this investigation.

As an aside, Griffin's trademark step-by-step description of procedures becomes tiresome when describing things that are commonplace to most readers, such as dumping images from a digital camera and renaming the files.

Maybe Griffin intended to write a book about investigating the 5 squad, but lost interest in a book about dirty cops. I suspect that the series has been suffering from Griffin's attention to his other books. It's a shame, because the first few books in the Badge of Honor series were some of his better ones. Of course, the first two or three entries in each of his series are always the most readable. If you're already a fan, though, odds are you'll read Final Justice despite the holes. And you'll stay up late turning the pages, because he writes well.

And in answer to my initial question, why bother with good editing when the author is assured of a loyal readership?

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 8th book suffers from time-line change, inconsistencies, March 13, 2003

By 

Don Nunn (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Final Justice (Hardcover)

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.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another guilty pleasure, February 11, 2003

By 

Chris Harbaugh (KOKOMO, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Final Justice (Hardcover)

I liked this better than Griffin's last book (in the Corps series) and I liked this one better than the last Badge of Honor issue.

I agree with the criticisms of this and other W.E.B. Griffin books. They are all pretty much the same, fish out of water rich boy serves in the Army, Marines or Police. Finds he is really suited to a life of adventure and meets other good guys in the series, very quickly falls in love with some beauty, has sex and then gets drunk on scotch. What's not to like? I counted up the various Griffin books, I've read them all (over 30) and they are all virtually the same, and yet I love them like I love Cheetos and beer. Just can't put them down. I'll make time to read these books. I liked this one a lot and the inconsistancies were not as pronounced as with his last work.

Relax and enjoy the ride (or chase as the case may be).