(11/02/2008) The Man Who Liked To Look At Himself by K. C. Constantine. New York. 1973. Saturday Review Press/Dutton. keywords: Mystery America Pennsylvania. 156 pages. 0841502668.
FROM THE PUBLISHER -
Police Chief Mario Balzic returns in his second exciting mystery. This time he must not only find the murderer, he must also identify the victim. It all starts when the new commander of the state troopers, Lieutenant Minyon, insists that Mario accompany him on the first day of the hunting season. It's bad enough that Minyon's prize Weimaraner bites Mario, but then she goes and digs up a human thigh bone. Minyon immediately calls for more dogs to search for the rest of the body. Mario, meanwhile, checks out the local citizenry to see if anyone is unaccounted for. There is one missing person, Frank Gallic, the partner of Mario's classmate, Mickey Sammara. Sammara and his sister Tina, Gallic's fiancee, have been running the meat discount house, waiting for almost a year for Gallic to return. When Minyon arrests Mickey, Mario gets Mo Valcanas, a crusty local lawyer who has never liked state troopers, to defend him. Finally, the last two hunting companions to see Gallic alive provide a tiny scrap of evidence that becomes Balzic's key to who murdered Gallic and why. A welcome addition to the mystery scene, the enormously likable Mario Balzic was greeted enthusiastically by critics when he made his first appearance in THE ROCKSBURG RAILROAD MURDERS.
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