Pennsylvania Books

As its former police chief, no one knows the failing industrial city of Rocksburg, Pennsylvania better than retired Mario Balzic. The former head cop turns to private sleuthing to relieve himself of the boredom of retirement, to escape the nagging of his spouse, and to supplement his income. Attorney Mo Valcanas hires his old buddy Mario to investigate an insurance claim that someone stole forty guns and 30,000 rounds of related ammunition.

As Mario investigates his town, he finds a myriad of suspects, some of who would not mind retiring the former police chief permanently. However, bullets and threats on his life aside, Mario suddenly suffers heart trouble as the cholesterol muddies his blood. Even as his health and his abilities diminish, Mario still needs to see justice is served before his mortality fails to allow him to finish this case.

The Balzic series is one of the best mystery collections on the market because the star suffers from all the problems of real life even as he conducts his investigations. The current tale, BLOOD MUD, shows how much talent K.C. Constantine possesses as Balzic finds mortality palely looking at him in the mirror. The investigation turns complex because of the number of suspects carving out their piece of a shrinking pie. The secondary cast such as Balzic's spouse and doctor augment the tale with humor and pathos. However, as in all the Balzic books, the lead protagonist makes it very clear that cardiac arrest or not he is the straw that stirs the plot of this entertaining novel.

Harriet Klausner

In Blood Mud, Mario & baggage are all there, but with something more this time. Not something new, but old dark currents made manifest, what's been brewing throughout the series finally poured in a glass & plopped on the bar in full view. Things, my friend, are all that they seem and always have been. Mario's fears are not only real, but have the power to bring him down. Now how to cope? His fire for justice burns hottest in his own chest, his own mind, and does its damage there. Injustice is not futility, but survival means a clawing back to the personal, to self-rescue, and Babyak, poor dupe, becomes not only an icon of what's so compelling about what Constantine does, but a metaphor for the historical & ahistorical moment that is the here & now in America. Say, for the bombing of a foreign embassy, or the incrimination of the politically expendable.

Mario has his hands full practicing self-rescue. He's learning hard lessons in the world & in his kitchen. But will Constantine leave it here? Is the retreat to the personal Mario's final response? What can one man do in his world, once he bears the weight of knowing?

One useful feature of the book that is not mentioned in the editorial reviews is its companion website, www.BrandywineGuide.com, which provides updates to the information in the printed guidebook.

The book in wonderfully interesting, providing rich history for each of the many subject locations, together with practical information for visitors . . . excellent directions, hotel information, etc. The author's style is engaging, and some of her "asides", such as a discourse on puzzling variations in the spelling of names, are delightful.

And, finally, this modest paperback is beautiful . . . loaded with splendid photographs. I dare say that if it were published with a hard cover, it could become a coffee table item!

A great book overall with well-documented and researched material.

Published by the British Museum Press in London for the museum there, it is an absorbing read that would interest any cat lover who wanted to get a little beyond the "pretty pictures of cute cats & kittens with scant text" as depicted in so many books. I recommend it to add to your feline library, or just to your library!

This book focuses on the impact of crack cocaine in three eastern cities -- North Philadelphia, Harlem, and Red Hook, New Jersey.

Richards seems to have none of the fear that would stop most people, because his pictures bring a viewer over the comfort line to become shocking. The scenes exceed imagination. In fact, one of his pictures in this book was challenged for its authenticity because it seemed almost too perfect... In it, a women pauses to look at her John, her hands on his zipper, with her young child watching her. On a wall behind her, a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. is displayed. Some black political leaders saw this picture and insisted that Richards must have set it up. He could only assert that he was truthful in his portrayal.

Truth is always stranger than fiction. This might be photojournalism's answer to magical realism: there is a wickedness and abandon to this world. The cover picture is another example -- the photograph shows an addict holding a syringe in his mouth. His eyes gleam in a way that suggests the insanity in the spirit of this individual.

Richards is for the most part a photographer who works inside America. Some domestic photographers lament that all of the best photographs are made in wars, and that the situations in our home communities preclude us from being able to make great pictures. Eugene Richards shows how this is false. He takes horrifying pictures in Long Island, in Philadelphia, in West Virginia, in Kansas City.

Being that it's a NON-FICTION book, it's horrible to fathom the kind of things that these men were put through in this "Hospital". I wouldn't even call it a hospital, more like a slaughter house. Reading about how the guards treated the patients makes me want to find one and kick and beat them like they did to the patients.

Once checked into Farview, pretty much the only way out was death. Once you check into reading this book, you won't be able to get out until you read the very last page, including the appendix.

Snatch up these used copies before they are gone. This is a definate keeper.