What do you think?
Rate this book
Another Day's Pain: A Rocksburg Novel
K.C. Constantine returns with the long-awaited final chapter of his saga of the Rocksburg Police Department. The police force of Rocksburg, Pennsylvania, doesn’t see a ton of action. With jobs and industry moving away from the small city outside Pittsburgh, Detective Ruggiero “Rugs” Carlucci’s greatest adversaries are his negligent vacation-prone fellow officers and an older divorcee who has a habit of dancing naked on her back porch when she stops taking her medication. Retirement is on the horizon for Rugs, and the Vietnam vet is counting the days until he can move on from the job.
But Rocksburg isn’t going to let Rugs drift off to retirement without a fight. Before he can neatly wrap up his career, Rugs will face a mad shooter, a vengeful city councilman, and, most perilously, his own mother.
With a supporting cast of characters painted through uproarious profanity and heart-wrenching confessions, Another Day’s Pain is a bold and darkly funny novel about crime and the damaged souls it leaves behind.
But Rocksburg isn’t going to let Rugs drift off to retirement without a fight. Before he can neatly wrap up his career, Rugs will face a mad shooter, a vengeful city councilman, and, most perilously, his own mother.
With a supporting cast of characters painted through uproarious profanity and heart-wrenching confessions, Another Day’s Pain is a bold and darkly funny novel about crime and the damaged souls it leaves behind.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published April 16, 2024
25 people are currently reading
126 people want to read
About the author
K.C. Constantine
33 books45 followersCarl Constantine Kosak is an American mystery author known for his work as K.C. Constantine. Little is known about Kosak, as he prefers anonymity and has given only a few interviews. He was born in 1934 and served in the Marines in the early 1950s. He lives in Greensburg PA with wife Linda.
http://www.badattitudes.com/KCCintvw....
http://www.badattitudes.com/KCCintvw....
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
August 31, 2024
Book 18 and the first I've read and it will be the only one. The final book. Written over five decades. Would have started at beginning but availability is a problem. Author died 2023 age 88.The oppressive mundanity of being a cop in small town Pennsylvania. I don't think I've missed anything not reading the first 17 books in this series.
It's dark, depressing, and funny. Is there a plot? Just a meandering series of train wrecks for 57 yo Detective Ruggieri Carlucci. The pettiness of small town politics. Dealing with incompetents. Enduring an abusive mentally ill mother who has to be institutionalized. A girl friend for decades with similar problems dealing with an aging mother. It's so overwhelming but Rugs persists and gets up to do his duty each day. The title sure fits.
It's dark, depressing, and funny. Is there a plot? Just a meandering series of train wrecks for 57 yo Detective Ruggieri Carlucci. The pettiness of small town politics. Dealing with incompetents. Enduring an abusive mentally ill mother who has to be institutionalized. A girl friend for decades with similar problems dealing with an aging mother. It's so overwhelming but Rugs persists and gets up to do his duty each day. The title sure fits.
July 21, 2024
I can’t remember how this book ended up on my “to read” list, no doubt an impulsive choice based on an article of best mysteries of 2024 or “most looked forward to” type of articles.
This is another segment of a series following a fictional suburb of Pittsburgh (it’s definitely Greensburg). The audiobook narrator isn’t from Pittsburgh because he mispronounces things, but as someone who grew up in the area, the dialogue is very authentic and the references are nostalgic to me. I liked the main character and the lack of cohesive plot doesn’t bother me. It’s more depressing than I typically like. Not as much as a mystery as a police drama.
This is another segment of a series following a fictional suburb of Pittsburgh (it’s definitely Greensburg). The audiobook narrator isn’t from Pittsburgh because he mispronounces things, but as someone who grew up in the area, the dialogue is very authentic and the references are nostalgic to me. I liked the main character and the lack of cohesive plot doesn’t bother me. It’s more depressing than I typically like. Not as much as a mystery as a police drama.
June 30, 2024
Grateful for one last chance to visit K.C. Constantine's Rocksburg, Pennsylvania. It's a bittersweet farewell centering and surfacing pain for Detective Ruggiero "Rugs" Carlucci and the other characters. Somehow though, pushing through and past the waves of pain shows signs of resilience and a glimmer of hope. This is really a unique and fascinating series.
August 18, 2025
A difficult book, full of anger, resentment, tension, I had to read in increments. so many mental health issues explored.
May 5, 2025
"This Be The Verse"
by Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
I don't give books five stars lightly. I have read Another Day's Pain twice in the last two months and I think the five stars are merited. And yet, I recognize that some of my reasons apply to me and not most readers.
I started reading what were then thought of as the Mario Balzic books not long after the series started in the early 1970s. It was, for a time, my favorite mystery/police series. It was set in the town of Rocksburg, once a coal town and, as the series began, slowly fading. At some point, the books widened out from being about Mario Balzic, the then Chief of Police in Rocksburg; the subtitle of Another Day's Pain is "A Rocksburg Novel." Balzic is scarcely in this book; the main character is police officer Ruggiero Carlucci, known as "Rugs."
So I have an emotional attachment to the series that others would not. Moreover, as with many books set late in a series, I think this must be confusing to readers new to the series.
The back cover refers to these books as "delighting readers with tales of Mario Balzic and the hapless Rocksburg Police Department," which to me describes a light, funny book. Another Day's Pain is actually tragic. People that we have come to care about die, relationships end, and, above all, families live in torment. The chief villains of this novel are not the professional criminals but aging, dementia, and the terrible problems they bring.
This is a book about police and so there are criminals involved (some of whom also suffer from dementia). All of these involve Carlucci, a man who is brave, caring, and struggling under the weight of multiple serious problems.
There is much humor in the book, as there has been throughout the series; I don't think that many readers will find this "delighting," however.
Constantine (whose real name was Carl Constantine Kosak) died in in 2023 at the age of 88, having written seventeen volumes in this series. The last of these was published in 2002. I recently found out that this posthumous novel, Another Day's Pain, the eighteenth and last, was published in 2024. For those who don't mind books sunk in gloom, I recommend it.
March 16, 2024
Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC of this novel. 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.
July 5, 2024
This novel is from a mystery author I've admired and liked for many years, but has somehow dropped out of my rotation. So now the former hero of the series is a bit part and I'm introduced to a former minor character as the hero. I can't say I liked the topic(s) of this novel, which were aging, difficult parents relationships, and a history of PTSD and child abuse, but the ability to insert oneself so perfectly into the life of a small town is remarkable. He reminds me a little of George V. Higgins.
September 16, 2024
Jay-zus. Buckle up for this one.
I don't know where I first saw a blurb about this book. I thought it must have been Crime Reads, but I can't find it there. Here's what I remember knowing, or what I thought I knew:
K.C. Constantine (never heard of him) published a long-running series of cop procedurals set outside Pittsburgh, PA. His last book was published in 2002. Otto Penzler and Mysterious Press signed on to publish this, the 18th and final book in the Rocksburg series, 22 years after Constantine's last book was published. Another Day's Pain was published in April 2024. The author, real name Carl Kosak, died unexpectedly the month before it hit shelves. He was 88 years old.
Okay, I'm in.
I listened to the audiobook in two marathon sessions. I fell in love with the dialogue and the characters, or maybe just the names of the characters. The book is bleak from the get, but by the end, it is DARK. The last quarter of the book is loaded with recollections of child abuse. Be forewarned.
There is no mystery. Not "barely a mystery." Not a mystery so obvious you see it coming — no mystery. Just a cop named Ruggiero "Rugs" Carlucci, and a bunch of other cops, and then a bunch of other townies keeping the Yinzer spirit alive (but definitely not well) in a small town just outside of Pittsburgh. Everyone in this town is either actively in a mental health crisis, or about 12 minutes away from a catastrophic breakdown. It takes place in the 1990s or maybe the early 2000s. Some parts are laugh-out-loud funny. At least, I laughed.
After I finished the book, I wanted to learn more about Constantine/Kosak. It turns out he was an anonymous recluse for most of his writing career. There is a brief, spotty Wikipedia article. Supposedly, Kosak asked himself and answered a few questions for an Amazon.com profile, but this no longer exists on Amazon. He also gave one interview to a British magazine called Crime Time, which the Internet Web Archive cannot produce. This information comes from a scraper blog with zero credibility called "Bad Attitudes." There is no mention of K.C. Constantine on the Mysterious Press website. Neither K.C. Constantine nor Carl Kosak is listed as a Mysterious Press author. You can, however, purchase the hardcover edition of the book Another Day's Pain from the Mysterious Bookshop.
What the hell, Carl?
Here is what I have put together from the Wikipedia article and the one credible extant source (see below.)
Carl Kosak was born sometime in 1934, and grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb McKees Rock, which he fictionalized as "Rocksburg." He served in the U.S. Marines sometime in the 1950s. At one point, he taught creative writing and composition at the Greensburg, PA campus of Seton Hall University until they fired him because he refused to get a Master's Degree. Maybe.
His first novel, The Rocksburg Railroad Murders, was published in 1972. This first book introduced the character Mario Balzic, who was the central figure in the first 15 books in the Rocksburg series, then known as the Mario Balzic series. Two of the three remaining Rocksbug novels feature Rugs Carlucci, and one follows three beat cops in the PD.
Despite some acclaim from the Edgar Awards (1989) and Booklist (1999), K.C. Constantine kept his identity a secret and gave zero interviews. He made his first public appearance in 2011, during a dry spell when no one wanted to publish more Rocksburg books.
Where did this great unveiling take place? Carl Kosak stepped out of the shadows and signed his first autograph at the 16th Annual Festival of Mystery, held at the Greek Orthodox Church in Oakmont, PA. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a story about it in May, 2011. That article is the only credible source I could find, served up courtesy of the Internet Archive.
The last crumbs of Carl Kosak are to be found in the 2018 obituary for his wife, Linda. Listening to the 7.5 hour audiobook of Another Day's Pain was the only clue needed to know that Carl wrote this tribute and that he loved Linda. It's not often you read an obituary and think, "Wow, this guy really hated his father-in-law."
RIP Carl Kosak. Of the 18 books you published, only five are still in print. I'll probably try to track down vintage copies of the others. You were somewhere between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers, yet based on reviews of your work, you had no problem writing vividly about the death of the American Dream, union-busting, trickle-down economics, abuse in the Catholic Church, food deserts, urban flight, the fallacy of "justice", PTSD, the War on Drugs, Medicaid, and the many, many ways America failed to live up to its promise as the City on the Hill.
I lost count of how many times Ruggiero Carlucci cries in the series' conclusion. He's having some very, very bad days after some very bad years. While there is nary a happy ending in sight, Rugs finds a way to go on. He doesn't yet believe that he deserves love and goodness, but he believes that one day he *might* believe that he deserves love and goodness. In Kosak's small-town Rust Belt America, we call that the hero's journey.
I don't know where I first saw a blurb about this book. I thought it must have been Crime Reads, but I can't find it there. Here's what I remember knowing, or what I thought I knew:
K.C. Constantine (never heard of him) published a long-running series of cop procedurals set outside Pittsburgh, PA. His last book was published in 2002. Otto Penzler and Mysterious Press signed on to publish this, the 18th and final book in the Rocksburg series, 22 years after Constantine's last book was published. Another Day's Pain was published in April 2024. The author, real name Carl Kosak, died unexpectedly the month before it hit shelves. He was 88 years old.
Okay, I'm in.
I listened to the audiobook in two marathon sessions. I fell in love with the dialogue and the characters, or maybe just the names of the characters. The book is bleak from the get, but by the end, it is DARK. The last quarter of the book is loaded with recollections of child abuse. Be forewarned.
There is no mystery. Not "barely a mystery." Not a mystery so obvious you see it coming — no mystery. Just a cop named Ruggiero "Rugs" Carlucci, and a bunch of other cops, and then a bunch of other townies keeping the Yinzer spirit alive (but definitely not well) in a small town just outside of Pittsburgh. Everyone in this town is either actively in a mental health crisis, or about 12 minutes away from a catastrophic breakdown. It takes place in the 1990s or maybe the early 2000s. Some parts are laugh-out-loud funny. At least, I laughed.
After I finished the book, I wanted to learn more about Constantine/Kosak. It turns out he was an anonymous recluse for most of his writing career. There is a brief, spotty Wikipedia article. Supposedly, Kosak asked himself and answered a few questions for an Amazon.com profile, but this no longer exists on Amazon. He also gave one interview to a British magazine called Crime Time, which the Internet Web Archive cannot produce. This information comes from a scraper blog with zero credibility called "Bad Attitudes." There is no mention of K.C. Constantine on the Mysterious Press website. Neither K.C. Constantine nor Carl Kosak is listed as a Mysterious Press author. You can, however, purchase the hardcover edition of the book Another Day's Pain from the Mysterious Bookshop.
What the hell, Carl?
Here is what I have put together from the Wikipedia article and the one credible extant source (see below.)
Carl Kosak was born sometime in 1934, and grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb McKees Rock, which he fictionalized as "Rocksburg." He served in the U.S. Marines sometime in the 1950s. At one point, he taught creative writing and composition at the Greensburg, PA campus of Seton Hall University until they fired him because he refused to get a Master's Degree. Maybe.
His first novel, The Rocksburg Railroad Murders, was published in 1972. This first book introduced the character Mario Balzic, who was the central figure in the first 15 books in the Rocksburg series, then known as the Mario Balzic series. Two of the three remaining Rocksbug novels feature Rugs Carlucci, and one follows three beat cops in the PD.
Despite some acclaim from the Edgar Awards (1989) and Booklist (1999), K.C. Constantine kept his identity a secret and gave zero interviews. He made his first public appearance in 2011, during a dry spell when no one wanted to publish more Rocksburg books.
Where did this great unveiling take place? Carl Kosak stepped out of the shadows and signed his first autograph at the 16th Annual Festival of Mystery, held at the Greek Orthodox Church in Oakmont, PA. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a story about it in May, 2011. That article is the only credible source I could find, served up courtesy of the Internet Archive.
The last crumbs of Carl Kosak are to be found in the 2018 obituary for his wife, Linda. Listening to the 7.5 hour audiobook of Another Day's Pain was the only clue needed to know that Carl wrote this tribute and that he loved Linda. It's not often you read an obituary and think, "Wow, this guy really hated his father-in-law."
RIP Carl Kosak. Of the 18 books you published, only five are still in print. I'll probably try to track down vintage copies of the others. You were somewhere between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers, yet based on reviews of your work, you had no problem writing vividly about the death of the American Dream, union-busting, trickle-down economics, abuse in the Catholic Church, food deserts, urban flight, the fallacy of "justice", PTSD, the War on Drugs, Medicaid, and the many, many ways America failed to live up to its promise as the City on the Hill.
I lost count of how many times Ruggiero Carlucci cries in the series' conclusion. He's having some very, very bad days after some very bad years. While there is nary a happy ending in sight, Rugs finds a way to go on. He doesn't yet believe that he deserves love and goodness, but he believes that one day he *might* believe that he deserves love and goodness. In Kosak's small-town Rust Belt America, we call that the hero's journey.
February 13, 2024
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.
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.
April 9, 2024
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.
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.
July 8, 2024
Another Day's Pain by K. C. Constantine is the culmination of the Rocksburg Police Department stories. Detective Ruggiero “Rugs” Carlucci faces some of the strangest and saddest moments of his career. Constantine's portrayal of declining mental health of parents and the guilt associated with this condition for the children is well done. Added to Rug's worries about his mother and the lack of non-vacationing patrol officers are the cases he has to take on. This is a fitting end to the series.
April 30, 2024
Underwhelming. The book is easy to read but the plot twists and turns in ways that feel unrealistic. By the end it feels the author gave up and everything turned into psych ward: calling paramedics to send his GF to the psych ward, his mom escaping the psych ward, and eventually the main character himself getting therapy. I’ve not read the other books in the series but hopefully they aren’t like this.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 20, 2025
Very surprising and engaging look at life in post steel mill Western PA. Really adept use of dialogue: both in capturing the authenticity of the people depicted, and also as a means to drive the story forward. Not really a mystery but a meditation on life grafted onto the bones of a police procedural. This was the last book in the series, but in no way required prior knowledge. I am going to go back now and read them all now.
July 16, 2024
Never read any of this series, just found this one on the new books shelf at the library, only to learn it’s the final one. But that’s okay. I kind of enjoyed it. The story has humor, and its tone is very authentic, but it does get dark really fast.
June 9, 2024
Feels like genuine southwestern PA dialogue. A tip of the hat to the long-time crime writer for his final book.
June 14, 2024
Completely depressing and sad. No redeeming qualities at all.
July 8, 2024
gritty, rust belt angst. often too hard to read.
August 18, 2024
The final in KC Constantine's Rocksburg PA series released after his death. The characters and situations remain vivid
October 15, 2025
Loved the main character Rugs and may need to go back and read other books by Constantine with the hom. Dialogue snaps and action abounds. Found the end a little heavy.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews