K.C. Constantine's Mario Balzic is one of those police chiefs so close to his people that nothing moves or even sits still in his town without his knowing how and why. His town is Rocksburg, a small coal mining town in western Pennsylvania where most of the coal has run out.
Tomatoes curiously ripening out of season are the key. It begins at Muscotti's Bar, Balzic's refuge, when Jimmy Romanelli sells several baskets of tomatoes to Vinnie, Muscotti's barkeep. It ends some weeks later after three deaths and a drained, disgusted Balzic, unable to take any satisfaction in his solution of Romanelli's murder, the proximate cause for Jimmy's twisted passion for growing tomatoes.
- ISBN10 0140066217
- ISBN13 9780140066210
- Publish Date 31 March 1983 (first published 12 December 1982)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 25 October 2004
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Penguin Group
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 177
- Language English