Grievance

Constantine captures the sadness of forgotten towns and their citizens like no one I have ever read. America has thousands of these places, old industrial towns like this one, almost closed down farming communities and so on. There are no real villains here--just victims, and their problems, so wrenchingly written about and described in their own words, will break your heart. This book is allegedly a mystery, but that only forms a rough scaffolding for his social commentary which is the real point of the book. A beautifully written, gritty book.

K.C. Constantine's Rocksburg series deserves far greater recognition as it continues. Early novels focused on Police Chief Mario Balzic. From its humble beginnings to its nearly surreal recent entries, the one constant is brilliant dialogue and interrogation. As an insurance investigator, I find Constantine's dialogue the best I've read. It truly captures the diversity of the interviewees that investigators encounter. Do try to hunt down all the books in this series. At least try to begin with Joey's Case and go from their. The surreal quality slowly builds into a great series. Grievance fills in nicely and really builds Carlucci as a worthy successor to Balzic.

In Rocksburg, Pennsylvania police Detective Sergeant Ruggiero "Rugs" Carlucci is awakened in the middle of the night to go to a crime scene. Someone killed J. Deford Lyon, the steel-manufacturing mogul who is infamous for the ruthless and vicious downsizing of his company. The victim's enemy list could fill Three Rivers to capacity and still need an overflow arena. Even before he arrives at the scene that he does not want to go to, he has a hard time. His lunatic of mother, who lives with poor Rugs, has tortured him for leaving. At the scene, the victim's wife refuses to cooperate. This is only the beginning of a case that seems to become more difficult to solve with every new clue. Perhaps the problems lie with cooperation worsening with each step Rugs takes and considering that he has none to start with that is quite a chore for the law enforcement official. GRIEVANCE is a fine police procedural that sub-genre fans will enjoy. However, like in GOOD SONS and BRUSHBACK, this novel's strength lies with its incredible cast of characters including the township. Rugs remains likable, frustrated, yet patient. The secondary cast augments the tale with blue-collar depth and his mother adds the elder care issue confronting baby boomers. K.C. Constantine has written another great hard-core crime fiction novel.