Again, one must marvel how Mr. Griffin ploddingly, with a wealth of detail, pertinent and otherwise, leads to a conclusion that happens so suddenly one almost has to stop and ask: Is it over? This part of the Badge of Honor series is better than most. And, again, Griffin leaves enough loose ends to lead us to the next part.

I consider this a pretty fair book. It's plots are interesting, but require a long, long time to develop: primary is God's plan to disintegrate the VPOTUS via a wacko bomber and secondarily a drug smuggling dirty cop scheme that detracts from the main plot by expanding the already long book. For some reason, Griffin felt the need to continue development of already explained police administrivia. The tried and true Griffin formula continues as Matt develops his skills as a detective and his boss, Peter Wohl is promoted to full Inspector. Life continues as Matt beds his junkie step sister and I'll continue on to the next book in the series. ( )

Not as good as the other Badge Of Honor books, but still enjoyable. The only problem I had with this book is that not enough time was dedicated to the actual assassin in this book, and a great deal of time was spent on a narcotics smuggling plot with a bad cop. There was enough material here for two books, therefore the ending was somewhat rushed. ( )

This is the fifth book, of 10 books, in the series, The Badge of Honour, and was published, May 1993. The series is about the City of Philadelphia police force, including the Philadelphia Highway Patrol, from the cop on the beat, right up to the Commissioner. God wants the Vice President of the United States killed. Marion Claude Wheatley has been told by the Lord to carry out this out by using a bomb. Marion, who is thirty-three years old, has no idea why God wants him to kill the Vice President, any more than why God has selected him to carry out His will in this regard. Marion is well educated with BA, cum laude, MBA from University of Pennsylvania. He is a market analyst (petrochemicals) for First Pennsylvania Bank & Trust. His brain has been trained to first determine the facts and then to draw reasonable inferences from them. The Vice President is coming to Philadelphia. It will take all the resources of the Philadelphia police force, FBI and the Secret Service to find this person before he can Assassinate the Vice President of the United States. ( )

This fifth installment in the Badge of Honor series, is a good one as far as I'm concerned. Peter Wohl and his crew at Special Operations are on two major cases. One is to deal with a bad cop and the other is to track a totally unbalanced assassin who has written a letter to the Police telling them that he has been told by the Lord to blow up the Vice President. That's the basis of the story, but as always the interest is with the characters. Griffin can do characters like no one else. These books are set in the late 70's, so there is a datedness in them, but that, in fact is their strength because Griffin seems to know what he's talking about when dealing with late 70's law enforcement. Don't expect cutting edge technology, but do expect a group of men (and that is what the police forces were in the 70's) that are dedicated and do their job to the best of their abilities. And it's so much fun to see what Matt Payne and his buddies get up to next. ( )