| , Research Paper
The man Who liked Slow Tomatoes
The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes is a detective novel written by K.C. Balzic an American mystery writer. Mario Balzic a proud from origin Italian police chief in Rocksburg, a coal-mining town in Pennsylvania will solve a crime, which is not even there at the beginning. But before that starts we meet Balzic in his attempt to work out union negotiations with the officials of the town. However Balzic is not really interests and so while being in a local bar, the Muscotti where he gets he so loved Mondavi vine, he answers the call of a frightened woman who says her husband is missing. As he gets to know from the bartender was the missing man just a few hours ago to sell tomatoes very early in the season. Also Balzic a overweight cop, who drinks to much, spends to little time at home, and has trouble controlling his tongue, which sometimes helps him to match investigators who intrude his working territory sometimes. Also, he is far minded he is also well companioned about his work, which is not always done by the book and its rules. This one, of the missing man lead him right back to Mary Frances Romanelli a woman that he used to watch while his father spend afternoons with her dad. When Balzic goes home to eat we met his wife and learn that he spends not enough time with his family and they really had it with this kind of situation. She also discovers that he again was drinking vine in the middle of the day. Upset she tells him to drink at least white vine so people can not see his red stained teeth. He leaves the house to go to work and after a striking talk to other town officials he leaves to visit Frances. Following his first visit with Frances he realizes that this little distraction will likely be a greater adventure than he had anticipated. When he meets Frances she doesn’t recognizes her but soon they talk very much familiar. He discovers that she abused by her husband Jimmy who lost his job about two years ago when the coal mines closed. The fact that her dad Mike Fiori, basically abandoned her makes her life seem to feel sorry about it for her. The only light her life is that she has now two jobs for the first time in her life and she visits the local community college in order to make money and put food on the table since the social checks ran out. She never in her married live needed to bother about money, Jimmy always took care of it by making all the decisions what to buy even her lipstick. While they both talk Jimmy shows up and throws Mario out since it would not be of his business where he had been. When Balzic leaves he overhears Jimmy saying he has quite a bit of money supposedly won by gambling. This raises new interest in Mario. Still the meeting in the townhouse is causing trouble with the negotiation about the salary and how the money should be divided under the departments. It always pushes Mario into a bad mood so that his cove with his wife is not lighting him up either. Balzic now turn to help in his case to an old friend in the drug department. He gives him valuable information about Jimmy, who was reported missing again by his wife. Balzic now investigates in a restaurant, the Spaghetti-house where the subject is supposed to be but stirs up drug dealers that work with Jimmy. Therefore he, Mario gets into trouble with the drug investigation department. They even threatened that he would lose his job. Mario now has his head full with the negotiations, his family trouble and Frances now calls every hour. Trying again to calm Frances down she tells him about her dad and how he acts like nothing matters but his gardening and Mario finds out that Mike is actually iin a contest who can grow better and earlier tomatoes. Frances talk indicates that she wants out no matter what the consequences with Jimmy are. Taking up all his time Mario now even leaves his family more behind. When he finally meets Mike he does conversations for three day and discovers that nothing matters but the tomatoes which Jimmy grows better and Mike is really upset about it. Later he, Mario meet a neighbor who is mentally challenged and is not capable of time realization. She tells Balzic she saw Mike kill Jimmy in her dreams. Balzic follows his instict and looks for the body and finds him. Frances can not stand it and goes crazy and even kills herself in her fathers house just 95 days after they found her dead husband. Mike gets into court but is freed since it would not help the public if he is convicted. He dies one year later, alone in between his tomatoes that bloom better than ever before. All gets solved, the negotiations end with a triumph for the police department and Balzic has more time for his family and simple police matters such as parking tickets.
Reading this detective novel was not always easy due to the writers vulgar street language associated with the region around Pennsylvania. However it made the book seem more real so that is was believable. while The author gives a deep description of the main character, which I think sometimes made it seem to long till he came to the point where he actually said what he wanted to say. Even though the book is with 174 pages considerably short it took me forever to read it since it was not as gripping as the back of the book promised. If I would have read the last 10 pages I could have saved my self a lot of time while I did not enjoy reading this book.
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