::READERS REVIEWS::

The Best of the Best - Constantine is one of the finest writers in America. Period. He has a stunning gift to bring basically ordinary people and bring them to full humanity. You can see their faces. You know what their houses and furniture are like. You have had a beer next to them at a neighborhood bar. Their lives matter to you. They are imperfect and struggling towards being better people, better fathers and mothers, better neighbors, better friends. And they often fail. His books have the smell and feel of life. And this is the best of this amazing lot. He gets weaker later in the series. All series authors do. But even at his worst he is brilliant. Je is the Richard Russo of mysteries, bringing the small town to life.
As to the negative reviews, well all I can is they must have had specific expectations that were incorrect. You simply cannot fault this book.

flimsy - this book was hard to force interest in, for me. The phony accents so exaggerated;it also seemed to me that Balzic is trying to be Peter Falk, and failing miserably. I don't think I'll read another by this author. Very flimsy, especially the last quarter of the book. Would not recommend to anyone. You can read about the plot (if you can find one, that is) in other reviews.

Thank Goodness it was cheap - Thank goodness it is a small book. Thank goodness I found it at half price day at the local booksale. Thank goodness I didn't bother to buy the rest of the series if they are like this one.

Lots of dull un-insightful talk. VERY dull un-insightful talk while the chief chews everything over. Now I am not one who turns down a good book with insightful characterizations and conversations. Action is not needful for a mystery. I am one who turns down pointless conversations and poor characterizations.

Avoid city contract problems, find missing husband, find out about major dealers. None of which develop into anything but proceed to bounce off and around each other almost pointlessly while a loose interconnection of the missing but NOT missing[??? or is he missing?] husband wanders thru it. Then a rapid here's what happened in the end shoved into a few pages. Yeah and why should I care? The author didn't if he took something that could have been expanded and gave me a slap dash summary of a few pages.

Characterizations leave a lot to be desired. I never got a full image of anyone even from the chief's view and we won't go into the image of the chief I did get. 177 pages of boredom in one small package. Too bad I didn't get it on bag day for about a penny.

An Original Right Off the Vine - K.C. Constantine's 'The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes' came highly recommeded by one of the best crime writer's to grace the genre, James Crumley. He lists this book as a classic and I can confirm that it doesn't disappoint. Constantine weaves a tapestry of small town crime in PA. where local politics, family affairs, and ex-coal miner petty hoods grate on the nerves of boozy, hard nosed fireplug detective, Mario Balzic. Like the slow tomatoes that remain at the thematic heart of the book, the charaters here take their sweet time in revealing their intent, developing at a pace which allows the reader to get a full taste of what they're all about. Balzic ain't no Marla Maples cozy, but he also isn't Sam Spade lurking in noir shadows with a tommy gun about chatter at any minute. More like he is the penulitmate small town detective, relying on a few smooth moves, a hangover cure, and a knowledge of his environment and its PA. locals to win the day.

Well-crafted, but dreary - The writing here is good, very good, and the characters are
subtly and richly drawn. The setting and dialog are
convincing, and the emotions will stay with you. Which
is perhaps the problem!

There is no redemption here. The mood and events are
dark, the deaths pointless. There is no brain-teasing
mystery, no real lesson about human nature beyond that
it can be ugly and destructive. I don't normally wonder
about the point of books, but I have to admit that after
this one I did. What was the point of all that? Did I
need to be reminded that life can be painful? Maybe
I did. In retrospect I think it was worth the time
to read, but I can't say I _enjoyed_ it.

There are a very few technical flaws (the drug-dealer
side-plot seemed entirely unnecessary, and the sudden
solving of the "mystery" at the end was abrupt and not
entirely convincing), but my complaint about this book
is not with the execution, but rather with the nature of
the project. A single beam of light would, I think, have
made this a more worthwhile work.