Browse Entire Site

Browse by Subject

LINDA BARNES

Carlotta Carlyle makes ends meet by driving a Boston taxi for a cab company owned by her sometimes lover, Sam Gianelli, the honest son of a mob family. For fun, she plays killer volleyball at the local YWCA. The cast of supporting characters, especially "little sister" Paolina and cab dispatcher Gloria, is well drawn. The writing is crisp and the plots are complex but believable. These are very enjoyable books.

Visit Linda Barnes' Homepage:

http://www.oocities.org/SoHo/Lofts/4577/

REVIEWS

Cold Case:

From Kirkus Reviews, 02/01/97:

Harvard Square's Carlotta Carlyle--our favorite six-foot, red- haired, ex-cop, blues-and-volleyball-playing, cab-driving p.i.--is drawn into a big-money case by a client with an outrageous manuscript of uncertain origins. Having claimed relationship to the powerful Cameron family, Carlotta's client turns out to be the psychiatrist lover of elegant Tessa Cameron, widowed mother to politician Garnet, institutionalized Beryl, and long-dead Thea. Later, he turns up murdered. The manuscript? Could it be the work of Thea, once a literary and sexual prodigy? If so, is Thea still alive and writing? And if she is, who's buried in Thea's grave? And who's using some mysterious scraps of prose to blackmail Garnet, who might have a shot at the governorship if he can just get his semi-estranged wife Marissa under control? But then Marissa is- -isn't she?--kidnapped. Barnes neglects several characters from the excellent series saga who were last represented in 1995's Hardware- -``little sister'' Paolina is at summer camp, and sexy Sam Gianelli in Palm Beach--but devoted cop Mooney is, with his official connections, a great help in grappling with this complicated and compelling case. Carlotta's seventh outing turns melodramatic and ultimately derivative during its payoff pages. Loyal fans will decide whether the author's proven flair for characterization makes it worth the read-time. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Coyote:

The publisher, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.:

"A blazing redhead, a loner with a cabbie's license and a mean volleyball spike, Carlotta Carlyle has a talent for trouble. Tonight her mysterious client speaks broken English and clutches a newspaper detailing the discovery of a mutilated body in the Boston Fens. The corpse has an immigrant's green card and that card, the client claims, belong to her. She wants it back. But who is she? Where has she gone? And why do all the leads connect her to Paolina, Carlotta's charming urban "little sister"? Paolina won't talk. And suddenly Carlotta is plunged deep inside the desperate world of illegal aliens, the cold-hearted immigration agents who hunt them down, and the deadly "coyotes" who lead even innocent young girls to the slaughter.

Steel Guitar:

The publisher, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.:

Carlotta Carlyle and Dee Willis once sang in harmony. Now Dee has a skyrocketing music career, while Carlotta drives a cab, dates a mafia scion, and looks for missing persons in Boston. But the miles they've traveled can't change what they once had, or keep it from coming back to haunt them.

Dee wants Carlotta to find the man who once worked magic with a guitar, but now dabbles in blackmail -- claiming to be the author of three of Dee's hit songs. When Carlotta starts searching Boston's backwaters she finds a pattern of corruption that leads back to Dee's entourage . . .and then to a dead body in Dee's swank hotel room. Carlotta knows that this gig isn't just about song titles, money, or even murder. Instead, this is the kind of stuff the saddest songs are made of: the past, and what happens when the innocence dies forever.

From Kirkus Reviews, 08/31/91:

Boston's p.i. Carlotta Carlyle, a six-foot, redheaded ex-cop, still drives a cab when business is slow (Coyote, etc.). Her passenger one night is singer-guitarist Dee Willis, once a close friend in a turbulent period of Carlotta's life and the woman with whom Carlotta's ex-husband Cal had decamped. Dee, after years of career ups and downs, has had a blockbuster record, is in Boston for a sellout concert, and is about to sign with media mega-giant MGA. She's also in trouble. Davey Dunrobie, another figure from the past, is claiming, with a lawyer's letter, that Dee's songs were written by him, and he's demanding big bucks. Dee hires Carlotta to find Davey, but the death of Brenda, her bass player, puts everything else on hold. Is it suicide or murder? Other questions need answers too. What is mobster Mickey Mangenero doing at the fancy MGA bash for Dee? Who trashed Carlotta's house, leaving a ``Back Off'' message on the bathroom mirror? And how does she really feel about Cal, no longer a druggie, who's discovered in her search for Davey while he's playing his bass in a seedy club? All of Carlotta's energies and resources are needed to find the answers, Davey Dunrobie, and a murderer to boot. Another of Barnes's superb mixes of warmth, enthusiasm, clever plotting, vivid characters, and overall brio. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.