The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes 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, the protagonist, is an atypical detective for the genre: he is a Serbo-Italian American cop, middle-aged, unpretentious, a family man, and someone who asks questions and uses more sense than force.

[1] The novel opens at Muscotti's Bar, Balzic's refuge, as Jimmy Romanelli sells several baskets of tomatoes to Vinnie, the barkeep.

[2] It ends weeks later after a disappearance that sorely challenge the detective skills of Balzic.

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