Deadly Assets

In Philadelphiasuffering among the countrys highest murder ratesthe tension between the Philadelphia Police Department and its Citizens Oversight Committee has long been reaching a boiling point. That turmoil turns from bad to worse shortly after the committee begins targeting police shootingsespecially those of twenty-seven-year-old Homicide Sergeant Matt Payne, the Wyatt Earp of the Main Lineand then the committees combative leader is found shot dead point-blank on the front porch of his run-down Philly row house.As chanting protesters fill the streets, the city threatens to erupt. Payne, among many others accused of being complicit in the leaders death, becomes quietly furious. He suspects theres something deeper behind it all, but what? Ordered to stay out of the line of fire, he struggles ahead to do what he does besthis job. Hes been investigating the murder of a young family. A reporter, working on an illicit drug series for Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Mickey OHara, has been killed with his wife and child, a note stapled to his chest warning that the drug stories are to stop. Period. While Payne knows that he, like his pal OHara, cannot back down, he also knows that they damn sure could be among the next to die.