Blood Mud - Softcover

Constantine, K. C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446676403 ISBN 13: 9780446676403

Publisher: Mysterious Press, 2000

Synopsis

The New York Times Book Review has hailed K. C. Constantine as the "eloquent" medium for "the voices of people who have lost out on the American dream". The place once again is the fictional town of Rocksburg, PA, which once had factories and saloons. Today it has "professional buildings" -- and saloons. It is here you'll meet Mario Balzic, the retired but irrepressible police chief who, like Rocksburg itself, is far from ready to call it quits...

He's lost his mother. He's earned his pension. Now Mario Balzic swaps the service rags of the public cop for the shirt and tie of the private cop. His assignment to go with the new look? Track down some stolen guns for an insurance company. Mario isn't surprised when they lead to bigger trouble: a philandering politico, an ambitious police chief, and a deli owner cum racketeer and his hapless nephew. Then a sudden murder puts a twist into his search, and a sudden cardiac episode almost stops him cold. Mario's lonely job has become a grim mission: to stay alive, at least long enough to crack another case.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Mario Balzic, chief emeritus of the Rocksburg (Pa.) PD, likes keeping his investigative hand in, especially when there's a fat fee involvedsuch as the $50 an hour offered by lawyer Panagios Valcanas to check out a gun-shop burglary that might also be a scam involving the insurance company that Valcanas represents. Mario sets about the sleuthing in his characteristic waybrilliance disguised as ploddingwhen suddenly the bad thing hits him: a ``coronary incident,'' as he's told at Conemaugh General when he comes to after passing out on the steps of the state police barracks. Not to worry, though, his doctor reassures him, explaining about the tiny drill that will dissolve the ``blood mud'' clogging a Balzic artery. But Mario worries, all right. This quondam tower of strength, who has faced down his share of dangerous enemies, now finds himself terrified, stalked by irrationality, struggling just to get out of his house. But, emotionally off-balance as he is, he's still Mario Balzic. ``Life is movement,'' he says grimly, wrenching himself into action. The burglary, he discovers, does have ramifications. Not just a small-time hustle, it's connected to gangsterism, murder, official cover-up, and police chicanery, which of all public misbehavior is the likeliest to energize the straight-arrow Mario. Rising above a variety of obstacleshis own vulnerabilities among themhe solves the crime, but the punishment that follows is, at the very least, ill-fitting. This is Constantine at the top of his world-class game (Brushback, 1998, etc.), with dialogue to cherish as his hero contends with two intricate casesthe mystery behind a robbery-murder and the even more complex mystery of Mario Balzic. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

In the bleak, industrial no-man's-land of central Pennsylvania sits Rocksburg, the town Constantine has put to such good use in his Mario Balzic and other mysteries (Brushback, etc.). Now, retired police chief Balzic, conscientious and cranky, is hired by an insurance lawyer to investigate a claimed loss of 40-plus handguns and 30,000 rounds of ammunition stolen from a firearms company. Bored with retirement, trying to ignore his wife's suggestions that he exercise more and they move to Florida, the self-described "old geezer" eagerly takes the job. Of course, what he uncovers is more complicated and corrupt than a simple heist. As is typical of Constantine's dark, gritty novels, the pitch-perfect dialogue carries a zigzag plot, full of idiosyncratic characters, that is beautifully developed and enigmatically resolved. Balzic's warm, often combative relationship with his wife intensifies when he suffers a "coronary event" and must face his fear of death and his guilt over unresolved cases. To compensate, he reads books by Dean Ornish, Herbert Benson and Robert Sarno given to him by his daughter, eats more veggies and practices yoga and meditation. But what really takes his mind off the "blood mud" clogging his arteries is his need to see justice served. Constantine rarely falters as he again scrutinizes a dying small town where politicians, cops and crooks divide up the diminishing spoils, and where people are still judged by their ethnic background. Balzic, meanwhile, continues to age ungracefully, cursing his deteriorating physique, hearing and memory in some very funny scenes that nearly relieve the darker doings elsewhere.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mysterious Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0446676403
• ISBN 13: 9780446676403
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 384