"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 that she doesn’t understand. The only way that 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.In this stunning breakout novel from the beloved author of the Carlotta Carlyle mystery series, Linda Barnes slowly winds the strings tighter and tighter, leading the listener ever more deeply into the lives of her characters with pitch-perfect pacing and mesmerizing prose."
"Now available in audio, originally published in the Boston Globe Magazine, a short story featuring award-winning author Linda Barnes’ feisty, redheaded, cab-driving, ex-cop private investigator, Carlotta Carlyle. On a great day to take in a ball game at Fenway, a seemingly harmless run-in with a familiar petty thief throws Carlotta into a wild chase through the park that turns up something far more interesting than the final score."
"Now available in audio, originally published in Women on the Case, an anthology of 26 original stories by the best women in crime writing, a short story featuring Linda Barnes’ feisty, redheaded, ex-cop private investigator, Carlotta Carlyle.
Carlotta can’t stay away when she’s offered a beautiful piece of classic blues history - the guitar of blues and gospel legend Reverend Gary Davis - in return for finding and stopping the uncomfortable advances of a blues-singing rock star’s stalker."
"In Lucky Penny, award-winning author Linda Barnes introduces the red-headed, jazz-loving, cab-driving Bostonian and Private Investigator Carlotta Carlyle.
As Carlotta lounges in her cab one night while waiting for a fare, the part-time cabbie is accosted and robbed at gunpoint. When she is unable to get any assistance from the police, Carlotta sets out on her own to recover the stolen goods and bring the perp to justice."
"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."
"The Boston PI and part-time cabbie is out to stop a serial killer targeting illegal immigrants in this “chilling and charming tale” (Cosmopolitan).
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).
Carlotta Carlyle has just returned home when a dead woman walks through her door. Manuela Estefan is breathing, walking, and talking—but according to the newspaper in her hand, she was just found savagely murdered in a marshy park not far from Fenway. The deceased woman was carrying Manuela’s ID card, and Manuela now begs Carlotta to get it back. Boston PIs aren’t supposed to touch murder cases, but when Carlotta comes back from the kitchen with a glass of water, Manuela has vanished, leaving five crisp hundreds on the table as a silent plea for help.
But this is no ordinary murder case. The woman holding Manuela’s ID is only the first victim in what will prove to be a series of slayings carried out by a vicious maniac—someone who preys on Boston’s immigrant community, but who would not be above going after a tall, red-headed private eye."
"This award-winning debut mystery introduces a Boston PI who’s “one of the most sparkling, most irresistible heroines ever to grace the pages of a whodunit” (Chicago Sun-Times).
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).
Let go from the Beantown police force for insubordination, Carlotta Carlyle is ready for business. Her first client is the genteel and elderly Margaret Devens, whose brother, Eugene, one of the last in a handful of Boston’s aging Irish cabbies, has suddenly vanished.
The case should be a cinch. Carlotta knows the territory. She even knew Eugene. But when Margaret is attacked, Carlotta fears the disappearance is just one hitch in a bigger scheme. Trolling the local pubs for clues isn’t going to hack it. Especially when she finds herself at odds with the FBI and a Mafia-connected former lover. As a moonlighting cabbie, Carlotta knows the streets well. But even she has no idea just how dangerous a route she’s taken …
Winner of the American Mystery Award and nominated for both the Edgar and Shamus Awards, this first book in the series is “beautifully plotted, exciting, moving, and leavened with wit” (Robert B. Parker)."
"Hailed by Sue Grafton as “a true original,” ex-cop turned private eye Carlotta Carlyle risks her neck in Boston’s Combat Zone for two very different clients
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).
Carlotta Carlyle is halfway through a pizza when her former boss, Lieutenant Mooney of the Boston Police, shows up at her door needing help even more than Carlotta needs a case. In a Combat Zone bar, Mooney got into a scrap with a stranger over a woman. Now the stranger is comatose, the woman has vanished, and Mooney has been suspended. He wants Carlotta to find the blond hooker with a snake tattoo who witnessed the brawl, and who can exonerate him.
Doing surveillance in the Zone, Carlotta gets a second case. A ritzy prep school kid with a bloody lip hires her to find his missing girlfriend. Drawn into two different yet equally dangerous worlds where dead bodies are showing up, Carlotta has only two weeks to save the most honest cop in Boston from going to jail, and to find a girl whose privileged parents don’t seem to care that she’s run away.
The Snake Tattoo was named an outstanding book of the year by the London Times."
