Six-foot-one red-head Carlotta Carlyle, a former Boston cop and sometime Boston cabbie, sets herself up as an independent P.I., ready to deal with anything from lost pets to grand larcenies

A Trouble of Fools

Literature & Fiction

BARNES, LINDA

United States

st.martins press

Carlotta Carlyle, a private detective, is hired to find a missing teenager, and tries to help a police lieutenant clear his name

The Snake Tattoo

Private investigator turned movie actor, Michael Spraggue returns to sleuthing when his old love and current winery partner is charged with murder

Bitter Finish

St Martins Pr

Carlotta Carlyle, the six-foot-tall redheaded private investigator, thought that working undercover searching out fraud on Boston's Big Dig would be a challenging assignment. After all, the Big Dig, the creation of a central artery tunnel running beneath crowded downtown Boston is an engineering marvel, the largest urban construction project in modern history, a fourteen billion dollar boondoggle in the eyes of protesters. Playing a mild-mannered secretary working out of a construction trailer is not quite the thrill ride she had in mind. Carlotta decides to moonlight, taking on a missing persons case, but the search for Veronica James turns up one dead end after another. So do her fraud investigations on the Dig, and soon it looks like Carlotta has dug herself one big hole. But then a break-in at Veronica's coupled with the mysterious death of a construction worker on one of the sites stirs up a storm, and soon enough Carlotta is in over her head in more ways than one. Suspenseful, unpredictable, and vivid, The Big Dig is a startling return to form for one of the masters of the crime genre.

The Big Dig: A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Minotaur Books

Harvard professor Wilson Chaney's position in life is hanging by a thread; his marriage, his reputation, not to mention his tenure at Harvard are in the hands of a blackmailer, someone threatening to sell Chaney's secrets at very high prices. His enviable life could disappear into thin air should the blackmailer's evidence-proof of his affair with a young student-become public knowledge. So he hires Boston private investigator Carlotta Carlyle to track down the blackmailer and put a stop to the scheme. Can she do it? Of course, but should she? The professor doesn't inspire much loyalty-after all, he did commit adultery with one of his own students-but Carlotta agrees. Digging into the case, nosing around Harvard and the possible suspects from the rest of Dr. Chaney's life, she uncovers a suspicious death as part of the backstory to Dr. Chaney's situation. Suddenly Carlotta's sixth sense is telling her the case might be more complicated-and more dangerous-than it first seemed. Fresh from the success of The Big Dig, the masterful Linda Barnes delivers a bold and engaging novel infused with the deft touch and intricate suspense that have become her trademarks.

Deep Pockets

When private investigator Carlotta Carlyle is wakened by a late-night phone call, she discovers that her "little sister," Paolina, the child with whom she was paired years ago by a local mentoring program, is missing. Carlotta combs the Boston streets looking for Paolina, torn between anger at the thoughtless teenage runaway and anxiety that something has really happened to her. Paolina is more than a sister to Carlotta. She's the daughter she never had, or never owned up to having. She's the one constant in Carlotta's life, more reliable than Sam Gianelli, her mob boss lover, a man whose always unpredictable behavior has become increasingly mysterious. Heart of the World, Linda Barnes's most intense, personal, and suspenseful Carlotta Carlyle novel yet, follows Carlotta's trail from New England to Miami to Bogotá and beyond as she probes the connection between Paolina's disappearance and the corresponding disappearance of the Colombian drug lord father Paolina has never met. A breathless and shocking read, Heart of the World is perhaps Barnes's best.

Heart of the World

Contemporary

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.

Lie Down With The Devil (Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries)

Heart of the World: Signed Edition

Boston P.I. Carlotta Carlyle wants to know what her on-again, off-again boyfriend Sam Gianelli did to earn himself the secret indictment for murder that€™s keeping him out of the country. A man with plenty of secrets, Sam won€™t tell her anything, much less let her help€”and she isn€™t having any more luck getting info from her old friends at the Boston PD. Sam€™s exile could have something to do with his mob connections, but it can€™t be that simple. Nothing involving Sam ever is.Finding no easy answers, Carlotta goes back to basics and takes a job working for a jittery bride-to-be who wants to make sure her fiancé is being faithful. The case is simple enough€”at first. But Carlotta catches the kind of break she wished she hadn€™t when her client ends up getting killed. Now, as she€™s hunting a down a murderer, she can€™t help but wonder whether love itself isn€™t the ultimate dead end€¦

Lie Down With the Devil

The first book in the Carlotta Carlyle series! Linda Barnes's A Trouble of Fools is the book that introduced readers to ex-Boston cop and PI Carlotta Carlyle, who knows trouble when she sees it like the old Irish lady offering a grand in cash to find her brother... TROUBLE… Since being bounced from the Boston police for insubordination after six years of service, Carlotta Carlyle has set up shop as a private investigator ready to deal with anything from lost pets to substantially grander larcenies. Though Carlotta, a six-foot-tall, redheaded ex cop, part-time cabbie, and neophyte private eye, works out of her home, it's rare that clients stop by unannounced. Especially clients like the genteel, reserved, elderly spinster Miss Margaret Devens. ALWAYS COMES… With cash flow problems and a caseload so light that she's taken to reading her cat's mail, Carlotta accepts the case of Miss Devens's missing brother Eugene. Oddly enough, Carlotta knew Eugene when they worked together back at Green and White Cab. As far as Carlotta sees it, this case should be a pinch--until two thugs looking for money send her client to the hospital. WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT… The old lady's missing brother seems to have been involved in something much more dangerous than simply driving a cab. Carlotta is determined to do whatever it takes?work the cops, pose as a hooker, and even drive a cab again--to find Eugene before it's too late. "She is one of the most sparkling, most irresistible heroines ever to grace the pages of a whodunit." ?Chicago Sun-Times "All elements are skillfully woven together in a book that has just about everything." --Denver Post

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Books by BARNES, LINDA

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by BARNES, LINDA. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Trouble of Fools

The Snake Tattoo

Bitter Finish

The Big Dig: A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery

Deep Pockets

Heart of the World

Lie Down With The Devil (Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries)

Heart of the World: Signed Edition

Lie Down With the Devil

A Trouble of Fools