7.4 /10 1 Votes
Country USA Publication date 1988 Pages 224 Followed by Sunshine Enemies Genre Novel | 3.7/5 Goodreads Language English Media type Print (Hardback) Originally published 1 April 1988 Preceded by Upon Some Midnights Clear Page count 224 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher The Mysterious Press of Warner Books Similar Good Sons, Saving Room for Dessert, Cranks and Shadows, Always a Body to Trade, Bottom Liner Blues | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Joey's Case is a crime novel by the American writer K.C. Constantine set in 1980s Rocksburg, a fictional, blue-collar, Rustbelt town in Western Pennsylvania (modeled on the author's hometown of McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, adjacent to Pittsburgh).
Mario Balzic is the protagonist, an atypical detective for the genre, a Serbo-Italian American cop, middle-aged, unpretentious, a family man who asks questions and uses more sense than force.
The novel opens with a former coal miner, Albert Castelucci, asking Balzic to investigate the killing of his son. He feels the state police in charge of the case have botched the investigation, but when Balzic begins, he finds more puzzles than he first expected.
It is the eighth book in the 17-volume Rocksburg series and was nominated for an Edgar Award.