Always a Body to Trade

Lively and impressively cynical police procedural, centered on Police Chief Balzic of Rockport, a blue-collar town in the depressed heart of the Rustbelt. This is the sixth in a series which is new to me. In this one, Blasic is trying to figure out who killed an unidentified young woman in what looks like an execution murder. He has few clues and must depend on a vividly-drawn series of informants to solve the case, while trying to deal with a new and very naive mayor. It's all a long way from "Law and Order", and it's nice to know the series is seventeen books long: I look forward to reading them from the beginning.

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 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 show more 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

For some reason I like these Balzic books. It must be the character and the odd western Pennsylvania location because the stories are slow and sometimes obvious. Once again the story unfolds slowly, gets interesting in the middle, and I am slightly disappointed with the ending.

OK, but not great. Good character descriptions.

Truly fine investigation: a new mayor in Rocksburg, a black chieftain, a Jane Doe.

Mario teaches naive young mayor the facts of "justice system"