Grind Joint
Penns River, Pennsylvania, is just another small Rust Belt city that is slowly dying. The downtown is nearly vacant, skilled factory workers can’t find work, and a sketchy entrepreneur is opening a bare-bones casino, a “grind joint,” that will do little for the town’s economy. Even local organized crime is under duress. The Mafia don of nearby Pittsburgh lives in Penns River, and his control of the local drug trade is under siege by Russian gangsters. Local police have a highly professional hit to investigate, but Detective Ben “Doc” Dougherty (pronounced DOCK-ur-dee) fears that the complete absence of forensic evidence will make clearing the case impossible, and city officials seem bent on forcing out Stush Napierkowski, Doc’s capable and honest chief. King has created vividly drawn characters, a plot the late Elmore Leonard would appreciate, and dialogue that hits all the right notes. His Penns River recalls K. C. Constantine’s wonderfully rendered Rocksburg, another struggling, soulful Pennsylvania mill town. But the reclusive Constantine has retired. Let’s hope Grind Joint is the first in a new series chronicling life and crime in the Alleghenies. --Thomas Gaughan