Randall Franks

A Badge or an Old Guitar Randall Franks

Former NBC and CBS star Randall Franks, best known for his role as "Officer Randy Goode" on TV's "In the Heat of the Night" and as a country music personality, combines his love of murder mysteries and music in "A Badge or an Old Guitar." Big-hearted small-town police officer James Randall from McKinney, Georgia, finds his job in peril when Chief Roy Wilkes is forced to suspend him after he protects an abused boy from his malicious father. While contemplating his circumstance, a country song he records, "Is There More to Life Than This," opens an unlikely pathway to stardom; but even that route becomes rocky when he is charged with murdering Nashville's biggest producer, Tony Grayson. As he struggles to choose between the police path or that of country crooner, a band of allies joins in. Newly practicing attorney Ruby Ann Wilkes, seasoned private-eye Jacob Marley, and intuitive adoptive uncle Joe Benton work to outwit Nashville police detective Patrick O'Shields to prove Randall's innocence - and help him regain the confidence that has been erased by a lifetime of loss.