Family Values - Softcover

Constantine, K. C.

3.63

82 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446605948 ISBN 13: 9780446605946

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 1998

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When a 17-year-old murder case rears its head, Balzic hears a variety of stories about a drug deal gone wrong and two bodies in a cabin. The fading, twisty trail leads him to a corrupt small-town police chief, now immobilised by a stroke.

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Review:

Good fictional cops don't fade away--they get another sequel. In K.C. Constantine's novel, Cranks and Shadows, Rocksburg P.A.'s police chief, Mario Balzic, retired. Now, in Family Values, he's bored out of his mind and itching for something to do. Before he can drive himself, his wife, his bartender and his friends completely nuts, Deputy Attorney General Warren Livingood arrives to make Balzic an offer: investigate a 17-year-old murder that just gets messier with every passing year in exchange for the title of Special Investigator, state credentials and thirty-five dollars an hour.

Soon Mario is conducting jailhouse interviews with a crew of unsavory folks, all offering up differing stories of the sordid crime at the heart of this tangle: a double homicide resulting from a drug deal gone bad. Eventually, however, the trail leads to Balzic's doppleg�nger of sorts: another small-town police chief who, in his prime, was the devil's own. In Family Values the mystery is almost secondary to the fascinating array of complex characters Mr. Constantine creates--characters that will remain in the reader's mind long after the murder has been resolved.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Great news for Mario Balzic's many fans: The retired police chief of Rocksburg, Pa. (Good Sons, 1995, etc.), is back in the saddle again--all except for a little piece of one ear (vide the priceless opening scene). As if in answer to his exasperated wife Ruth's prayers, Balzic is offered a temporary job at $35 an hour working for the Attorney General's office. Citing new evidence, jailhouse lawyer Lester Walin, n‚ Walczinsky, has demanded a post-conviction hearing in re the killing of two druggies 17 years before. The evidence: Hubert Scumacci, the witness who swore that he drove pothead Lester to the fatal rendezvous, now says the shooter was somebody else; and Edgar Patter, a convicted perjurer who helped put Lester away back then, has produced a document that he says proves Lester was in Ohio the night of the murders and can't have seen a thing. Heartened by the promise that these no-account felons will now tell the truth, probably for the first time in their lives, Lester insists that he has an alibi: a set of Polaroid shots he never produced before for reasons the subject of the photos makes grotesquely clear. Investigating this serpentine latest round of claims and counterclaims will take Balzic deep into the heart of one of the most monstrous families in mystery annals. ``Sometimes,'' Balzic concludes, ``you learn things, which the minute you learn `em you wish you hadn't.'' All too true for him, though not for his lucky readers. -- Copyright �1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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