The Rocksburg Railroad Murders

The series of Mario Balzac mysteries, beginning with The Rocksburg Railroad Mystery, is my all-time favorite detective series. The characters in The Rocksburg Railroad Mystery become so real, you feel you can visualize them and identify with their good qualities as well as their failings. The characters are people we all know. As you read further, the characters develop so that we're dying to know more about them and need to read the next book in the series.

In the afterword to his latest novel, "From a Buick 8," Stephen King explains that his fictional West Pennsylvania town is "near" the fictional town of Rocksburg that is the setting for K. C. Constantine's series of nonviolence mysteries about chief of police Mario Balzic. I am sure I am not the only one who will take this particular bit of advice and check out "The Rocksburg Railroad Murders," the first volume in the series, which is set in the early 1970s.Mario Balzic is described as "a hokey, untypical detective who works from a bedrock of compassion and shrewd common sense." But do not let this bit of endpiece hyperbole dissuade you from checking out this mystery. Yes, there are some stereotypical elements in this novel--the chief hates the pompous district attorney Milt Weigh and the overly inquisitive reporter Dick Deitz (no, not the Giants catcher who was hit by Don Drysdale with the bases loaded but not given first base because he did not try to get out of the way, thereby preserving Drysdale's scoreless innings streak, which has since been broken by Orel Hersheiser)--but this is also a chief of police who does not like his cops running around with guns (thing "Destry"). Mario has teenager daughters who are trying to tolerate his eccentricities, an elderly mother who remembers basically everything anybody has ever done in this town, and is friends with Father Marazzo, who is willing to listen to anything the chief wants to get off his chest.A man Mario has known since childhood is found bludgeoned to death with a Coke bottle on the platform of the Rocksburg railroad station. The damage is so bad Mario has to be told the name of the victim. From his initial investigation Mario becomes convinced that the man's stepson is the guilty party, but proving it is going to prove rather difficult for a lot of reasons. As the title indicates, this is only the first murder in the book and the tension builds as we wait for the second victim to drop. For Constantine characterization assumes more of an importance than the detective work in this novel, because Mario pays as much attention to the need for compassion as he does for the search for clues. This is a nice start. We get a good sense of the lay of the land, not only of Rocksburg but more importantly of the way Mario Balzic thinks and the way he feels. For me, this was enough to motivate me to move directly to the next story in the series, "The Man Who Like to Look at Himself." Except for the Spenser for Hire series I have never really a lot of mysteries per se, and when I do it is character more than story that grabs my interest. So danke, Mr. King. Final warning: Constantine does not divide his novles into chapters, so if you settle down to read this book intending to finish the first chapter before you go to sleep, you are going to by up all night.

Mario Balzic is the chief of police in a small Pennsylvania town. He's an oddball in that he doesn't even carry a gun, usually. When a senseless murder occurs at the railroad station, and there are no witnesses, Mario must rely on his wits and knowledge of psychology to direct him to the likely killer.Constantine writes very realistic fiction. This is not a glamorous or exciting detective novel, compared to most detective novels. The small-town setting makes it different from most police procedurals, also. All the dialogue seems very true-to-life, and the characters are drawn by someone who knows people.The story drew me in further and further as I read. One gets the feeling that Constantine himself must live in a small Pennsylvania town like Rocksburg, just to be able to bring this kind of local flavor to the dish.This is the place to start if you're interested in this series, since it's the first novel in the set.ken