K. C. Constantine

I found this an intriguing book. It shows up in a number of 100 greatest mysteries lists, or the like, and one thing that is interesting about it is that there is very little mystery in the book and very little detective work. The detective is more concerned with preventing a crime than solving one. The book's interest is procedural, sociological and in its depiction of the characters. Primarily that means the character of Mario Balzic, the Serbo-Italian chief of police in a dying show more Pennslyvania town, but Constantine is also good at quicker portraits of people Balzic encounters. A non-urban procedural in which the main character works mostly alone, and in which the procedures have as much to do with city labor negotiations as with detective work. show less

Someone has killed a nameless woman. Brutally shot her right in the face. It's up to Chief of Police Mario Balzic to solve her murder only he has two problems: not much to go on in the way of clues, witnesses or suspects and a new mayor who is a little too eager, a little too young and more than a little too green to understand how crimes are solved. He wants this case put to bed yesterday.
The title of the book comes from the idea that in the ways of crime there is one rule: always have a show more body to trade; meaning there is an accomplice on who to rat if you get caught.

My only "issue" with Always a Body... was that I found it hard to believe the some of the things Balzic would say and do as being professional. I can't see the chief of police readily admitting to a deputy warden that he had been drinking the night before and probably too much so. Another huge red flag was the fact that Balzic never followed up on leads. He always took them at face value...which made the ending completely predictable. show less

Classic KCC. No action and almost all dialogue that could have been cut back by a half. Written in the early 80's with characters with memories from WWII in SW PA it speaks the vernacular. And that can wear. But an actual plot appeared halfway through the book and Balzic's WWII memories filled out the read. Nothing evil here. Just people getting by and KCC making a story out of a few scenes. I enjoy the neighborhood and the characters and the ways we used to refer to each other by our tribal show more affiliations (Irish, Italian, Slovak, Polish, Greek, Russian). All before we became Americans. show less

An early KCC, Mario Balzic book from 1975. No need for uber villains in the town of Rocksburg. KCC manages to set a good pace while discussing the characters in coal and steel mills still functioning in western PA. Problems weren't unemployment but poor pay and lack of support in hard times. Most of these characters had WWII experience and were hard men, often 2nd generation Italian immigrants, laying claim to being American. A good book watching Mario B. come to grips with the current show more situation and considering, as usual, little action, a KCC trademark. show less