Flashpoint


Book Description

After Carlotta Carlyle helps burglar-proof the apartment of an old woman, who is promptly murdered, the redheaded private detective is plunged in to a murderous maelstrom of real-estate tycoons and entertainment bigshots.




Lie Down with the Devil


Book Description

Bestseller and multiple award–winning author Linda Barnes returns with the most personal case to date for her popular Boston PI, Carlotta Carlyle. Carlotta, in unfamiliar territory working on her own behalf, finds herself in the middle of a complicated case that has as much to do with the people she loves as the backstreets of Boston, and beyond. For starters, Carlotta wants to know what her on-again, off-again boyfriend Sam Gianelli did to earn himself a secret indictment for murder that's keeping him out of the country. A man with plenty of secrets, he won't tell her anything, much less let her help, and she isn't having any more luck with her old friends at the Boston PD. Sam's exile could be connected to the mob—he is in the family—but she's not buying it. It couldn't be that simple. Nothing involving Sam ever is. Faced with nothing but dead ends, Carlotta goes back to basics and takes a case for a nervous bride-to-be who wants to make sure her fiancé is being faithful. Simple enough, but when her client turns up dead, Carlotta catches the kind of break she wished she hadn't. While nothing is as it seems in Lie Down with the Devil, one thing is clear: Readers know that when they're reading Linda Barnes, they're in the hands of a maestro.




Coyote


Book Description

When a mysterious woman asks Carlotta Carlyle to help locate her missing immigration card, it looks to be a pretty straightforward assignment. That is, until the lady disappears, and the card turns up in the possession of another woman...who just happens to be dead. Suddenly the case is far too intriguing for Carlotta to drop-and when her investigation indicates that her client was somehow connected to her inner-city "little sister" Paolina, Carlotta's got an even bigger stake in seeing it through. Alongside a handsome immigration agent with some secrets of his own, she follows her leads into the treacherous underground world of illegal aliens and those who mercilessly prey upon them. It's a lawless, dangerous territory: a place where the only thing Carlotta can rely on is her own wits, and where nothing--from innocence to life itself--is sacred...




Further Adventures of Carlotta Carlyle


Book Description

Available for the first time in one volume: three delectably puzzling mystery stories—including the Anthony Award–winning story “Lucky Penny”—starring the inimitable taxi-driving Boston private investigator Carlotta Carlyle Six-foot-tall, redheaded ex-cop and Boston-based private eye Carlotta Carlyle is “the genuine article: a straightforward, funny, thoroughly American mystery heroine” (New York Post). Struggling PI Carlotta Carlyle drives a cab at night to make ends meet. She’s almost done with the night shift when a fare tries to rob her, and her moonlighting gig becomes a crime scene. Unfortunately for the thief, nothing ruffles Carlotta. As she figures out why she was targeted, she uncovers startling information. Whether Carlotta is flying cross-country to safeguard a blues musician’s priceless guitar or stopping a killing at Fenway Park, this flame-haired, six-foot-one detective knows to never let a felony get in the way of a good time. In these three stories—“Lucky Penny,” “Miss Gibson,” and “Stealing First,”—acclaimed author Linda Barnes demonstrates precisely what makes Carlotta Carlyle one of mystery fiction’s most distinctive and engaging private detectives.




The Big Dig


Book Description

Working undercover to look for fraud on Boston's Big Dig, the proposed central artery through downtown, Carlotta also moonlights on a missing person case. But the mysterious death of a construction worker puts Carlotta in over her head. Martin's Press.




Snapshot


Book Description

Every Friday a child's snapshot arrives at the Boston office of P.I. Carlotta Carlyle. There's no note. No return address. Just pictures of the child as a newborn, as a toddler, as a preschooler. Maybe Carlotta should have tossed them all in the trash. Maybe then she wouldn't have gotten mixed up again...in murder. Discovering what happened to the child in the photos draws Carlotta into a shattered picture of private lives sadly out of focus-and big shots mixed up with deadly conspiracy that stretches from a New England hospital to the Third World. And when she finds her own "little sister" from the Boston Big Sisters program in a different kind of danger, the truth jumps out in harsh black and white. In a world filled with killers and innocence, Carlotta Carlyle may be the only avenging angel left....




The Perfect Ghost


Book Description

In The Perfect Ghost, a stunning breakout novel from the beloved author of the Carlotta Carlyle mystery series, Linda Barnes slowly winds the strings tighter and tighter, leading the reader ever more deeply into the lives of her characters with pitch-perfect pacing and mesmerizing prose. Mousy and shy to the point of agoraphobic, Em Moore is the writing half of a celebrity biography team. Her charismatic partner, Teddy, does the interviewing and the public schmoozing. But Em's dependence on Teddy runs deeper than just the job—Teddy is her bridge to the world and the main source of love in her life. So when Teddy dies in a car accident, Em is devastated, alone in a world she doesn't understand. The only way she can honor his memory and cope with his loss is to finish the interviews for their current book—an "autobiography" of renowned and reclusive film director Garrett Malcolm. Ensconced in a small cottage near Malcolm's Cape Cod home, Em slowly builds the courage to interview Malcolm the way Teddy would have. She finds Malcolm at once friendlier, more intimidating, and much sexier than she had imagined. But Em soon starts hearing whispers of skeletons in the Malcolm family closet. And then the police begin looking into the accident that killed Teddy, and Em's control on her life—tenuous at best—is threatened.




Hardware


Book Description

Private investigator Carlotta Carlyle’s moonlighting job as a taxi driver turns into the most dangerous, high-octane case of her career Six-foot-tall, redheaded ex-cop and Boston-based private eye Carlotta Carlyle is “the genuine article: a straightforward, funny, thoroughly American mystery heroine” (New York Post). When Carlotta can’t sleep—or when money gets tight—she drives a cab. It’s always been a dangerous way to make a living, but lately it’s become truly terrifying. In the last two months, nine cabbies have been savagely beaten and robbed, and every time Carlotta gets behind the wheel, she knows that she could be next. How then can she refuse when a rival taxi company hires her to investigate the assaults? Thinking she will be making the world a safer place for cab drivers, Carlotta doesn’t suspect that this new case will push her even closer to the edge. The company she works for is co-owned by Sam Gianelli, her sometime lover and a mob-connected businessman whose family knows how to get tough. Drawn into a tangled conspiracy of mafia secrets and high-tech espionage, Carlotta will have to drive faster than ever to stay alive. Hardware is the 6th book in the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.




Cold Case


Book Description

Hired to find a missing novelist, Boston private investigator Carlotta Carlyle gets tangled up in a cutthroat political campaign Six-foot-tall, redheaded ex-cop and Boston-based private eye Carlotta Carlyle is “the genuine article: a straightforward, funny, thoroughly American mystery heroine” (New York Post). Thea Janis was a literary Mozart. She published her first novel at age fourteen, shocking the upper crust of Boston with her frank depiction of blue-blooded indiscretions, and she seemed to have a magnificent career ahead of her. But before Thea could publish her follow-up novel, she mysteriously disappeared and was eventually named as a victim of a serial killer. Twenty-four years later, an admirer of Thea’s comes to Carlotta claiming to have evidence that Thea is alive—and still writing. He begs Carlotta to find the onetime prodigy, but there are powerful people, including Thea’s prominent family of Boston politicians, who want Thea’s second book to stay buried. As a take-no-prisoners gubernatorial race speeds to its climax, Carlotta discovers a secret that could upend the campaign, endanger people’s lives, and rewrite literary history. Cold Case is the 7th book in the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.




The Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries Volume One


Book Description

As a former Boston cop, Carlotta Carlyle thought she had seen it all—but that was before she became a private eye . . . Six-foot-tall, redheaded ex-cop and Boston-based private eye Carlotta Carlyle is “the genuine article: a straightforward, funny, thoroughly American mystery heroine” (New York Post). A Trouble of Fools: Recently fired from the Beantown police force for insubordination, the part-time taxi driver lands her first case as a private eye. Searching for a missing Irish cabbie leads her into a nefarious scheme that puts her at odds with the FBI and a Mafia-connected former lover, in this award-winning debut. The Snake Tattoo: A London Times outstanding book of the year, Carlotta Carlyle’s former boss, Lieutenant Mooney, gets into a scrap with a stranger in a bar. When the stranger winds up comatose, Mooney is suspended, and he needs Carlotta to find the one woman who can exonerate him: a blond hooker with a snake tattoo. Coyote: An illegal immigrant is mistakenly pronounced dead when her ID card is found on the body of a murdered woman near Fenway Park. Now she needs Carlotta to get her ID—and her life—back. But this wasn’t an isolated crime. A murderer is targeting Boston’s immigrant community . . . and could easily add Carlotta to the kill list. Steel Guitar: Carlotta is shocked to see blues superstar Dee Willis climb into her cab. They were friends in college—until Dee ran off with Carlotta’s husband. Now, Dee’s in town playing a concert and wants Carlotta’s help tracking down a mutual friend. But when a blackmail plot is uncovered and a corpse is found in Dee’s hotel room, Carlotta will have to work fast to keep Dee from becoming another casualty of the blues.