Cranks and Shadows

{{Short description|Crime novel by K. C. Constantine}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}

{{Infobox book |

| name = Cranks and Shadows

| title_orig =

| translator =

| image = Cranks and Shadows.jpg

| caption = First edition

| author = K. C. Constantine

| cover_artist =

| country = United States

| language = English

| series =

| genre =

| publisher = The Mysterious Press of Warner Books

| release_date = 1995

| media_type = Print (hardback)

| pages = 314

| isbn = 0-89296-543-6

| oclc = 31131489

| preceded_by = Bottom Liner Blues

| followed_by = Good Sons

}}

Cranks and Shadows is a 1995 crime novel by the American writer K. C. Constantine{{Cite book |last=Constantine |first=K. C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KTKArzGUMmMC |title=Cranks and Shadows |date=1995 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=978-0-89296-543-4 |language=en}} set in 1990s 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.{{Cite book |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kc-constantine/cranks-and-shadows/ |title=CRANKS AND SHADOWS {{!}} Kirkus Reviews |language=en}}

The novel opens with Balzic being told to lay off five members of his police department. Balzic confronts members of the Conemaugh Foundation, a clandestine organization out to seize control of Rocksburg.

It is the eleventh book in the 17-volume Rocksburg series.