Mario Balzic
Created by K.C. Constantine
(pseud. of Carl Kosak)

Imagine if The Continental Op had settled down in Poisonville. That's the premise, more or less, of the highly-acclaimed MARIO BALZIC series by K.C. Constantine.

He's a hard-boiled, streetwise small town police chief who zealously guards his home turf of Rocksburg, a dying industrial town in western Pennsylvania, and will do whatever he has to. He can be tough, he can be cranky as hell, he can be rude and profane, but he can also be surprisingly gentle and compassionate. But don't cross him, just in case.

Balzic performed his duties, serving and protecting the public through a dozen or so books, before retiring, to be replaced by acting police chief Detective Sergeant Rugs Carlucci. And then in 1999's Blood Mud, Balzic returned, working as a private eye, plagued with health problems, hired by an old attorney buddy to investigate an insurance claim.

NOVELS

• The Rocksburg Railroad Murders (1972)
• The Man Who Liked to Look at Himself (1973)
• The Blank Page (1974)
• A Fix Like This (1975)
• The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes (1982)
• Always a Body to Trade (1983)
• Upon Some Midnights Clear (1985)
• Joey's Case (1988)
• Sunshine Enemies (1990)
• Bottom Liner Blues (1993)
• Cranks and Shadows (1995)
• Good Sons (1996; with Rugs Carlucci)*
• Family Values (1997)
• Brush Back (1998; with Rugs Carlucci)
• Blood Mud (1999).. Buy this book
• Grievance (2000; with Rugs Carlucci)* Buy this book
• Saving Room for Desert (2002)
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• * Balzic appears as a secondary character.

RELATED LINKS

• Bad Attitudes
  Opinions, essays, a newsletter and excerpts from fellow crime writer Jerome Doolittle, the creator of Cambridge, MA P.I. Tom Bethany, full of what he calls "bad attitude." And some stuff from K.C. Constantine is also available here to sample or buy pdf versions of . In fact, there are a few rumours that Doolittle and K.C. are the same feller. Don't rightly know about that, but for sure .A refreshingly opinionated site well worth checking out.

Thanks to Big Al for putting me straight on this one.