K.C. Constantine's Mario Balzic is one of those police chiefs so close to his people that nothing moves in his town without his knowing how and why. His town is Rocksburg, a coal-mining town in Pennsylvania where most of the coal has run out. In this, his fifth case, out-of-season tomatoes are the key. It begins at Muscotti's Bar, when Jimmy Romanelli sells several baskets of tomatoes to the bartender; it ends some weeks later with three deaths and a drained, disgusted Balzic, unable to take any satisfaction in his solution of Romanelli's murder.

As in all the Balzic novels, the Chief is the center of the action. He's fiercely unpretentious, in absolute command, and so fundamentally good at what he does that not even his profanity succeeds in hiding his detective genius. If you haven't met this Serbo-Italian, profoundly American cop, it's time you did.