Badge Heavy is the third book in the Charlie 316 series and picks up shortly after Never The Crime ended. The Anti-Crime Team is up and running and working the streets of Spokane hard. Officer Gary Stone is on ACT along with Tyler Garrett as well as well with rookie Jun Yang and veteran officer Ray Zielinski. While the four officers are on the team and, in theory, working together, they are fragmented and have settled into a Stone/Garett and Yang/Zielinski pairing. Despite their internal issues, they are generating results in their pursuit of HPOs--High Profile Offenders.

It has been nearly two years since Garrett got away with murder and more. Captain Tom Farrell knows Garrett is dirty. Farrell just can’t prove it. The Anti-Crime Team was supposed to be a trap for Garrett, but it isn’t working out that way at all. If anything, it has allowed Garrett to further entrench himself in the Department and improve his status. Trying to catch Garrett and prove his criminal activities is slowly becoming an insurmountable problem. Farrell does have a couple of ideas though they could just as easily backfire. As readers familiar with the series already know, Farrell is not the only police officer on the hunt sure Garrett is dirty.

Badge Heavy by Frank Zafiro and Colin Conway is another rock-solid installment in this highly entertaining police procedural series. Politics and police work are heavily intertwined in real life and they certainly are in the series. The authors have managed to keep ratcheting the tension in each installment and then they rally blow the doors off with the end of Badge Heavy. This is a series that concludes with the November release of Code Four.

While it is always important to read any series in order, that absolutely is a must here. Relationships evolve and change over time and there are many changes, personally and professionally, for these characters as time passes. The crime problem and the pollical landscape play major character roles in this series and those issues change as a reaction to events and other factors. That ongoing aspect is a key part of this complicated series.

Badge Heavy: A Charlie 316 Novel is highly recommended.

Badge Heavy: A Charlie 316 Novel
Frank Zafiro
http://www.frankzafiro.com/
Colin Conway
https://colinconway.com/about
Down & Out Books
https://downandoutbooks.com/2020/09/14/new-from-down-out-books-badge-heavy-by-co...
September 2020
ASIN: B08CVRYL6G
eBook (available in print format)
385 Pages

I received a digital ARC of this read from author Frank Zafiro weeks ago with no expectation of a review.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2020 ( )

Badge Heavy by Colin Conway & Frank Zafiro
Charlie-316 #3

Two years of trying to catch a corrupt cop sees those trying to catch him frustrated and at times frazzled. The new ACT – Anti-Crime Team is up and running with Ray Zielinski, Gary Stone, Jun Yang and Tyler Garrett on the team. The sergeant has taken time off to deal with family issues but the teams continues to work with an administrative sergeant temporarily overseeing them. The team dynamics are less than the best even though significant numbers of felons are being arrested. I *really* want the bad cop only out for himself to be taken down and every time he appears in the story, I want to smack or perhaps shoot him.

What I liked:
* The police portions of the story that gave me an insight into how a team like the ACT one might work
* The police politics and look into that aspect of police stations
* That the book made me feel…even if it was negative feelings about wanting to warn someone or whack someone else.
* The insight into the team and what made them tick.
* Jun Yang: a rookie cop with military MP experience doing a job that made her question quite a few issues. I respected her and can see her in a book of her own in the future – if the authors are so inclined.
* The gritty real feel of the story
* The police officers doing their best to trip up/catch the bad cop – I didn’t agree with all that they did but did agree with their desire to catch and deal with the evil in their midst
* Knowing that the next book will wrap the series up. It is hard seeing good police officers having to deal with a bad apple in their midst and definitely time to take this bad guy down.

What I didn’t like:
* That the baddie is still free at the end of the book
* Being reminded of how evil some people are

Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I read more by these authors? Definitely

Thank you to the authors for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars