| Joey's Case | |
| Author: | K. C. Constantine |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Publisher: | The Mysterious Press of Warner Books |
| Release Date: | 1988 |
| Media Type: | Print (hardback) |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Isbn: | 0-89296-347-6 |
| Oclc: | 16406152 |
| Preceded By: | Upon Some Midnights Clear |
| Followed By: | Sunshine Enemies |
Joey's Case is a crime novel by the American writer K. C. Constantine set in 1980s Rocksburg, a fictional, blue-collar, Rust Belt town in Western Pennsylvania, modeled on the author's hometown of McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, adjacent to Pittsburgh.
Mario Balzic is the protagonist, an atypical detective for the genre, a Serbo-Italian American cop, middle-aged, unpretentious, a family man who asks questions and uses more sense than force.
The novel opens with a former coal miner, Albert Castelucci, asking Balzic to investigate the killing of his son. He feels the state police in charge of the case have botched the investigation, but when Balzic begins, he finds more puzzles than he first expected.
It is the eighth book in the seventeen-volume Rocksburg series and was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel in 1989.[1]