I would like to thank Netgalley and Penzler Publishers for an advance copy of Another Day’s Pain, the eighteenth novel in the Rocksburg PD series featuring Detective Sergeant Ruggiero “Rugs” Carlucci.

I have not read this series before, so coming in at the end of it is not ideal, but it works well as a stand-alone so no worries there. I thoroughly enjoyed Another Day’s Pain, which has the feel of a wrap up on Rugs’ life and career and involves some heartfelt pain and some genuine laugh out loud moments as well as a lot of mental health issues.

Rugs has a lot to deal with, he’s working patrol because the chief lets every married officer go on holiday in August, his mother is in a psychiatric facility a town councillor is hounding him to retire and his romance is struggling. His call outs almost always end in farce, which is where the humour lies, but underneath that is the mental instability in the perpetrators. Then his mother escapes and that leads to tragedy.

As I said the novel feels like a wrap up, so while these call outs are funny and exemplify police work, the bulk of the novel is about Rugs’ mental health and how he approaches it. Badly is the answer for much of the novel, but when the secrets come out and he starts to see a way through the novel ends on a hopeful note. His anguish is so well described it almost brought me to tears. He’s a good man who has suffered much and broods on it, so it’s good to see hope.

Another Day’s Pain is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

K. C. Constantine was the pen name of Carl Constantine Kosak (1934-2023). He was born in McKees Rock, Pennsylvania, and lived most of his life in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, both suburbs of Pittsburgh. He memorialized the two towns as the city of Rocksburg in his series about Mario Balzic, chief of police, beginning in 1972. These books increasingly moved away from the traditional mystery format and focused on the economic decline in western Pennsylvania and its impact on the citizens of the region. His concern is always on the people of his stories.

After a gap of over 20 years, one last book in the series is being published, wrapping up the character arcs. Another Day’s Pain (Mysterious Press, 2024) finds Mario Balzic long retired and his friend Rugs Carlucci contemplating retirement while dealing with his failing mother. His sometime girlfriend has promised to never put her mother in a long-term care facility and is wearing herself to a thread between a full-time job and the growing difficulty of caring for her mother alone. When the two manage to compare notes, they are sad but see no way to change their hopeless situations.

In the meantime all of the members of the force with children have gone on vacation at the same time, leaving Rugs and a couple of others to juggle the various calls for assistance in Rockburg. In a hilarious scene Rugs is sent to deal with a woman off her medication terrorizing her ex-husband and their daughters. Rugs has had to cope with her before and he knows just how outrageous she can be. In another frightening sequence Rugs takes on a shooter who has killed his roommate and is attempting to kill everyone else in the apartment house.

The latter confrontation lands Rugs in hospital for a few days, giving him plenty of time to think about leaving the job behind forever.

Alternately somber and comical, this book is a fitting end to a masterpiece of a crime fiction series. Constantine had a gift for creating original characters and bringing them to life on the page in scenarios that every reader can identify with.

Starred review from Publishers Weekly.

For more about Constantine, see Jeff Siegel’s article from Mystery Scene magazine: https://www.mysteryscenemag.com/article/3139-across-the-great-divide-kc-constantine-takes-the-detective-novel-into-uncharted-territory

Oh my gosh. What did I just read? A manic, furious slice of small-town rust belt Americana in the present moment. A prodigious talent from a writer that I had never heard of. The story is told.from the point of view of a police officer on the cusp of retirement in southwestern PA. Through incessant dialogue, and intermittent action, we learn what ails him and those around him, and what they have to put up with on a daily basis. You feel like you are eavesdropping. The book would make a fantastic play and reads like one. The ending is so bittersweet. I hope to explore more of the author's books. Five stars.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Penzler Press, Mysterious Press for an advance copy of the final volume in a series about the slow decay of a small town in Pennsylvania, and those who are just trying to get by and find a little bit of happiness.

I don't remember when I first discovered K. C. Constantine, nor can I tell how many times I have read most of Constantine's books. I was a big mystery reader and Mysterious Press was my go-to publisher for a lot of books, so I'm sure that is how it started. What kept me reading and re-reading was the humanity. Sure it featured a police force, a captain, and maybe there was a crime or two. The reason I loved the books, and would constantly return to the town of Rocksburg was the the people and their tales. Everyone from the long suffering Mario Balzic, his deputies, family even his enemies lived lives that were sad, full of regrets, moments that could never be reclaimed, forgotten, or forgiven. The final book in the series Another Day's Pain, is just as real, just as sad and just as powerful.

Ruggiero “Rugs” Carlucci is facing 6 day weeks covering for his fellow officers who all take vacation at the same time in August. Rugs' girlfriend is having problems with her family and work, Rugs has lost his pepper spray and a town councilman is trying to get him to retire. And Rugs keeps giving the town ammo to get rid of him by firing his gun, losing his radio, and just being who he is. A town disturbance gets him more enemies, a sore head and sore girlfriend. Plus his mother is acting up again, breaking the wrist of someone at the hospital and things are starting to get to him, in ways they never have before. As the town that he has never really left starts to fade ever closer to obsolescence, Rugs is faced with a future far different than planned, and a past that refuses to stay the past.

K. C. Constantine kept his life a very closed book. I know little about the man, except his real name, and the work that he has left behind. And that work is just wonderful. There are people here that fiction does not cover, people with real lives and real problems that never get addressed, aided, paid out, or forgiven. Their is anger, at institutions like the police, the government, big business and the church. And anger at what we humans value, and what we don't. The guilt that never goes away. They are mysteries in the sense that it is about police, but don't let that stop you. These are stories about people who don't understand or know why things are the way they are, and don't have answers to make them different. They try to help in small and big ways.

This is the last book in the series, and is a good place to start. One gets the history, some of the names might be unfamiliar, but they will soon, as hopefully this will be a gateway book for a lot of people. The whole series is very good, and I know booksellers would be happy to order them for readers. One can read in order, or as one finds them. All are very good, and really should not be missed.

With the posthumous publication of his 18th Rocksburg novel, K.C. Constantine deserves more than a review, he deserves an homage.
He was one of the best mystery novelists in the last quarter of the twentieth century. From 1972 to 2002, he wrote seventeen novels about the fictional town of Rocksburg, PA. Humble police procedurals, they rarely had a murder, often not even a major crime. Chief Mario Balzic, one of the remarkable protagonists to come out of this period, investigated domestic disturbances, drunken rants, and neighborhood squabbles resulting from corporate greed and government policy. Constantine was frequently nominated for awards, and his books included on many “best of” lists. His early A FIX LIKE THIS still holds up, and ALWAYS A BODY TO TRADE was included in a number of best mysteries of the century. Constantine also wrote differently than any other in his trade. His books bristled with dialogue. Not witty banter—dialogue, like people talk. Page after page contained uninterrupted dialogue that furthered the action, whatever little of it there was. Even the books that weren’t as good as the others still had good parts.

ANOTHER DAY’S PAIN is one of those books. It ranks somewhere in the middle of the series, but it has two tremendous sections. Ruggio “Rugs” Carlucci, who replaced Balzic as police chief and was then demoted to detective, is still on the job in 2012. He is still dealing with his violent mother, committed to the mental hospital up the road for attacking a cop that Rugs called on her. He also has to deal with repeat offenders, like the woman who periodically stops taking her meds and has to be committed. This time, Rugs calls for help, then fires his gun into the ground three times to stop the fire chief who answers the call and the naked woman from fighting. The other section of note is one of the best-written fight scenes to see print, when Rugs subdues a much larger gunman terrorizing the town. It’s Constantine at his best.
The fight makes Rugs a hero, but it also signals the start of his decline into retirement. His injuries are more than physical. The psychological trauma triggers memories of abuse he suffered not only at the hands of his mother, but also meted out by a priest in his youth. As he did consistently in his previous books, Constantine manages to take on large issues with small-town events. In a dying town like Rocksburg, it’s just ANOTHER DAY’S PAIN.

The authors last book is a fitting end to a career that has been largely overlooked but should not be. Intensly human, filled with heart-breaking compassion, the author has consistently dealt with the frailties and vageries of the human condition. His main character, Mario Balzic, barely shows up in this final book but his protege and son he never had, shines as the lead character. This story of the damage parents do to their children is told in great scenes replete with dialogue so true to life that the reader feels like an eavesdropper. This is a masterful end to a series that should be treasured. I loved this book at the same time that it caused me great pain and anguish.