Brushback [Audio Cassette]

K.C. Constantine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 13, 1998

The highly acclaimed author of "Good Sons" and "Family Values" brings back the popular Detective Ruggiero "Rugs" Carlucci, acting chief of the Rocksburg, Pennsylvania, Police Department. When a former professional baseball player is beaten to death, Carlucci delves into the recent past of the athlete and finds that the bases are loaded with suspects National print ads, publicity .

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Det. Rugs Carlucci, acting chief of the Rocksburg Police Department, hunts for the murderer of Bobby Blasco, a gambler who once pitched for the Red Sox. Picturesque characters, pithy dialog, and good plot.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Think of Rocksburg, Pennsylvania, as a kind of ethnic Winesburg, Ohio, with the steel mills and mines shut down, and you'll understand the small world of pathos, poignance, and inchoate longing Constantine creates in this wondrous series. There are no true heroes and only a few real villains. Mostly there are victims--of human frailties, theirs and others; of change; even of ice storms. Layer by layer, each character is revealed to be complex and worth knowing. This time out, Ruggiero "Rugs" Carlucci is investigating the brutal murder of Brushback Bobby Blasco, a local hero who once beaned the immortal Ted Williams, even though Williams was his Red Sox teammate. Blasco, who has a history of beating wives and girlfriends, has been bludgeoned to death with a Louisville Slugger autographed by the Splendid Splinter. But Rugs has many competing concerns: his mother's nightly anxiety attacks; his duties as acting police chief; byzantine city politics; undertrained, overworked cops; and summoning the courage to ask a beautiful woman for a date. The denouement scarcely resolves all his worries, but readers will feel a kind of affirmation from knowing that Rugs and Rocksburg will soldier on. K. C. Constantine is our truest detective of the heart. Thomas Gaughan --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Books on Tape, Inc. (August 13, 1998)
• ISBN-10: 0736642161
• ISBN-13: 978-0736642163
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,381,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining Small Time Police Story With a Likable Lead, December 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Brushback (Mario Balzic Novel) (Hardcover)

K. C. Constantine develops the character of acting police chief Rugs Carlucci, into a likable guy operating in a small time depressed western Pennsylvania town. The author uses dialogue in a most effective and entertaining way. The police chief is a Viet Nam vet, a good civil servant, a good son, and good cop liked by most around him. Investigating the murder of a former home town sports hero, he gets to open up the decaying environment of this "has been" town near Pittsburgh, PA. What the reader gets is a entertaining picture of this town and its socio-economically depressed characters and politically corrupt small time government.

The story did leave me wanting more. I wanted to see the nice guy police chief further develop the love affair with his coworker's cousin.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As good as Richard Price, better than Don DeLello, July 22, 2008

By 

Michael J. Leahy (Santa Rosa, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brushback (Mario Balzic Novel) (Hardcover)

K. C. Constantine is one of the finest writers that I have read in some time. Constantine's novels are at least as good as the fiction of Richard Price, and they are much better than Don DeLillo's. The Rocksburg novels rival the quality of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin sea novels, and Brushback is one of Constantine's best works. It is a pity that Constantine's novels don't currently share the same popularity. I've read most of Constantine's novels and I haven't been disappointed yet. The dialogue is spectacular. The characters are complex. These works are as subversive as anything written by Seymour Hersh, as good never triumphs, and the powers that be are all corrupt to some degree. If you read one, you will probably read all of them.