Deadly Assets: A Badge of Honor Novel

At the start of Griffin’s gripping 12th Badge of Honor novel (after 2013’s The Last Witness), the fourth to be coauthored with son Butterworth, Sgt. Matt Payne of the Philadelphia PD visits a North Philly diner, the workplace of Daquan Williams, a good kid who’s on parole and trying to go straight. Payne hopes Daquan might have information about a recent drive-by shooting, but their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of two armed teenagers, one of whom fires three shots before Payne stops him with a bullet to the chest. Meanwhile, as the end of the year approaches, a series of murders raises the annual death toll on Philadelphia streets to 362. The Rev. Josiah Cross, an ex-con who served time for assault and forgery, is leading protests over the killings in “Killadelphia”; Cross’s campaign includes a poster of Payne at a crime scene with the caption Public Enemy #1. Payne and his cohorts face long odds in a gritty police series that provides sociological comment but no easy answers. Agent: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, William Morris Endeavor (Aug.)