Customer Reviews

Brushback (Mario Balzic Novel)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.