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Title: Sunshine Enemies by K.C. Constantine ISBN: 0-446-40008-4 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: This time for Mario Balzic it is as personal as it could be
Comment: "Sunshine Enemies" is the Mario Balzic novel (note it is not called a mystery any more) that I have been waiting for K. C. Constantine to write ever since the second book in the series ("The Man Who Like to Look at Himself"), where the chief's family life was thrust into the background. One of the strengths of the first Mario Balzic story, "The Rocksburg Railroad Murders," was that the chief's wife, kids and mother were part of his life and part of the world in which he lived. But with each subsequent novel Ruth and the rest of the Balzics were scarcely seen; sometimes Mario would ask his mom for some information about someone from the old neighborhood, but more often than not there would be a note from Ruth reminding Balzic she had not seen him awake and/or sober for a while. All that changes big time with "Sunshine Enemies."
The title is a drunken twist on one of Balzic's caustic comments on the way of the world. It takes us a while to learn that in this novel, just as it takes us a while to understand why this is not a mystery novel. "Sunshine Enemies" is a character study that digs deep into the psyche of someone we are still getting to understand after eight novels. The set up is a series of distractions: the Police Chief of Rocksburg has to deal with a minister complaining about a recently opened porno shop, but gets a bigger headache when a brutal knife murder takes place outside the shop. A reluctant witness tentatively comes forward, and it does not seem that we have much of a mystery here. But then Balzic's mother suffers a massive stroke and suddenly brutal crimes in the small western Pennsylvania town become insignificant.
The prognosis for Marie Petraglia Balzic is not good and suddenly Balzic is face to face with his deepest insecurities. His wife confronts him with the brutal truth about how they have both used his mother, Ruth's best friend, as the chief means of staying connected. Balzic looks at his daughters and realizes they have become grown women, who tend to curse just like their father, a fact that horrifies him. The novel becomes a series of crushing body blows for Balzic, one after another, in which he finds himself shaken to the depths of his soul as his world is turned upside down.
The hallmark of this novel, like Constantine's other novels, are the conversations that Balzic has with the other characters. But this time the key difference is that the vast majority of such dialogues are not about a crime under investigation. Instead, they are about such issues as what Balzic thinks about what happens to people after they die, what he thinks about Marie dying her hair, and what really happened when his mother defended him from the attacks of a nun when he was a child. There are some conversations about the crime at hand, allowing Mo Valcanas to hold forth on the relationship between pornography and sex crimes, but they become meaningless as Balzic contemplates the great impact his mother has had on not only his life but also that of everybody who knows her.
The fact that this is not a "true" mystery per se should not matter to readers of the series. The chief attraction here is Balzic's compelling personality not the sordid little crimes he is solving in each novel. Of course, I appreciate the irony in getting what I wanted in a way that almost makes me wish events in Balzic's life did not take such a tragic turn. But the character has needed to reclaim his soul for several novels now, and it has been clear from the beginning that his soul is with his family.
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Title: Cranks and Shadows (A Mario Balzic Novel) by K. C. Constantine ISBN: 0446403539 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1996 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Man Who Liked to Look at Himself by K.C. Constantine ISBN: 0879236639 Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher Pub. Date: 01 June, 1987 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
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Title: Bottom Liner Blues: A Mario Balzic Novel by K.C. Constantine ISBN: 0892962895 Publisher: Warner Books Inc Pub. Date: 01 May, 1993 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes by K. C. Constantine ISBN: 1567921922 Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher Pub. Date: 01 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Family Values by K. C. Constantine ISBN: 0892965452 Publisher: Warner Books Inc Pub. Date: 01 February, 1997 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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