Upon Some Midnights Clear

As you can easily guess from the title of this seventh Mario Balzic mystery, Christmas is threatening Rocksburg, Pennsylvania and it becomes obvious fairly quickly in "Upon Some Midnights Clear" that Balzic has good reason for dreading the holidays. Ed Sitko, the chief of the city's volunteer firefighters calls to tell Balzic about Mrs. Gabin, who was mugged of...in Christmas money and demands to know what the chief of police is going to do about it. But before Balzic can get around to investigating the case Sitko has his men out collecting money for the victim and the more Balzic looks into what happened, the less he likes it. However, Balzic's life is nothing if not extremely complicated and in trying to clean up this mess he has to deal not only with the bigoted fire chief but a newspaper columnist who has little regard for the truth unless it suits her needs, an alienated Vietnam vet and his friends who are tired of being blamed for losing the war, and a small time criminal who always manages to worm his way out of trouble. When Balzic finds himself in Musconi's listening to the old crime boss give him advice, he knows that Christmas is going to be anything but merry."Upon Some Midnights Clear" is the Mario Balzic mystery that K.C. Constantine needed to write at this point in the series because the character had been dangerously close to wallowing in self-pity. Certainly he has been ignoring his family way too much in the last few novels, whose plot lines have threatened to consume his soul. When you have a character who able to enforce his sense of justice on those around him not just because of his personality but because of his position of power it becomes important for the reader to feel such a person is connected to the real world and not off rambling around their own little kingdom. Being nice to the wife and kids is important because of the grounding it provides Balzic. Constantine's approach remains the same. Balzic engages in a series of conversations in order to work his way to the truth of a given situation. This time around he is haunted by more than his usual share of doubts, which compels him to several key moments of self-reflection. Maybe just writing about Christmas was enough to get Constantine to lighten up a bit with regards to both Balzic and what happens in Rocksburg, because I certainly did not have the sense of wallowing in dirt and filth like I had after some of these novels, especially the previous effort, "Always a Body to Trade." Something approaching a happy ending, even if it means justice comes in the form of a man getting away with a crime for which he is guilty being punished for one in which he is innocent, is definitely a welcome relief. Balzic will almost certainly be back in the trenches, but at least this time around he gets the most important thing right.

I read this every year during the holidays and it's a crime (no pun intended) that it's out of print. The theft of an old lady's Christmas Club money leads to. . . well, you'll have to find out for yourself. Constantine's pitch-perfect depiction of a western Pennsylvania XMAS (i.e., gloom, cold and slush) captures a side of the holiday that most would choose to ignore. And his old ladies can't be beat. Usually, they do the beating. (see Grievance, his most recent mystery.) It's time for a reissue.