As Thomas Gaughan stated in his review of The Murderers (the 1995 novel in the Badge of Honor series) in Booklist: Griffin knows Philly, the Philadelphia PD, and cops, and he fills his novels with vast amounts of detail as proof of that knowledge.

His style sometimes even takes on the convoluted cop-speak found in police reports. He might, for example, take two pages to describe the route a character drives from Chestnut Hill to Center City. Yet, somehow, such excesses become virtues in the eyes of his readers.

The abundant — verging on overwhelming — nature of Griffin's detail may lie at the heart of his popularity.

Yet despicableness is present in this novel, more so than in the other series; the characters are not perfect. Griffin's characters now may have real character flaws, yet they are, on balance, good men. Wohl yells at a cop, and feels...