''Blood Mud'' is a

crime novel Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...

by the American writer K. C. Constantine set in 1990s Rocksburg, a fictional, blue-collar,

Rust Belt The Rust Belt is a region of the United States that experienced industrial decline starting in the 1950s. The U.S. manufacturing sector as a percentage of the U.S. GDP peaked in 1953 and has been in decline since, impacting certain regions and ...

town in

Western Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania is a region in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, covering the western third of the state. Pittsburgh is the region's principal city, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic ...

, modeled on the author's hometown of

McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania McKees Rocks, also known as "The Rocks", is a borough in Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania, along the south bank of the Ohio River. The population was 5,920 at the time of the 2020 census. It is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. In ...

, adjacent to

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

. Mario Balzic is the protagonist, an atypical detective for the genre, a Serbo-Italian American cop, unpretentious, a family man who asks questions and uses more sense than force. The novel opens with Balzic again being lured out of his retirement with an offer: track down the missing guns from a local gun shop for an insurance company. It is the fifteenth book in the 17-volume Rocksburg series.

Reception

A review by ''January Magazine'' calls the Blood Mud "Constantine's best yet," praising the complex story and rich dialogue. Publishers Weekly comments on the "pitch-perfect dialogue", describing it as "beautifully developed and enigmatically resolved."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blood Mud 1999 American novels Novels by K. C. Constantine American crime novels Novels set in Pennsylvania Mysterious Press books