Product Description

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 person's 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 into 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...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #359855 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.com Review
When PI Carlotta Carlyle is hired to go underground in the newest title in Linda Barnes's popular series, it's more than a figure of speech; she's investigating rumored theft and corruption on the big dig of the title, Boston's multibillion dollar tunnel project. She's also involved in another case, that of a missing woman whose friend, wealthy Brahmin Dana Endicott, knows that even if Victoria left her job tending bar or her other job caring for animals at a local dog-grooming company without giving notice, she would never have abandoned her beloved dog, who's been left behind at Endicott's Back Bay brownstone. Then a workman who alerted authorities that things were disappearing from the dig site dies in a fall that might be an industrial accident but on closer investigation, begins to look like murder. It takes the determined Carlyle a few more beats before she links her two cases with the big Patriot's Day celebration planned at Faneuil Hall on the anniversary of the Waco massacre, but by the time she has, she's located the missing woman and a kidnapped teenager, foiled the bad guys, and managed to bed an undercover FBI agent--attagirl, Carlotta! A lively and engaging heroine in a tidy mystery whose fast-paced narrative slows but doesn't stop for the details about Boston's ambitious, overdue, and overbudget urban renewal project. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
The taut ninth entry in Barnes's Carlotta Carlyle series concerns malfeasance at Boston's Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project, "the biggest urban construction project in the history of the modern world," an engineering marvel and a multibillion-dollar opportunity for graft, kickbacks and political favors. Wounded in the thigh from a gunshot during her last case (1999's Flashpoint) and in the heart from a romance with a rising Mafia don, Carlyle poses as a secretary to find what's rotten at a Big Dig contractor, Horgan Construction. A disgruntled hardhat falls to his death-or is he pushed? Someone seems to be stealing dirt from the site. The boss's wife has a horrible case of nerves. Just as Carlyle feels stymied at the Big Dig, she's diverted by a second, more lucrative case-Dana Endicott, a Boston Brahmin, begs her to find her missing tenant, Veronica James, whose fate seems tied to an oddly silent kennel. Carlyle is immensely likable, tough without being hard, flawed in ways more original than the average mean streets sleuth. Barnes makes excellent use of Boston's ethnic and economic fiefdoms: the waterfront with its yuppies guzzling designer beer; South Boston, where despair clings to its citizens like the aluminum siding to their decrepit houses. The many plot threads are abruptly but satisfyingly tied up with writing that's vivid, economical and fun. Carlyle thinks: "This business, this art, of deception, of keeping daily secrets, hiding a side of your personality, intrigued me." It intrigues readers, too.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"The most refreshing, creative female character to hit mystery fiction since Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone." --People

"Carlotta Carlyle combines the sensitivity of Robert Parker's Spenser with the stubbornness of Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski and she's rapidly carving out a place of her own."--Chicago Tribune

"Carlotta is an engaging narrator with a brisk, easy-going style...a worthy competitor in the private eye business."--Washington Post

"A shrewd piece of writing, Well-researched and smartly told."--Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

"Like the best of the new detectives, V.I. and Kinsey, [Carlotta Carlyle] is a woman of wit and gravity, compassion and toughness, a heroine worth spending time with.... [Those of us] who yearn for whodunits with character as well wrought as plot, can only thank Linda Barnes."--Susan Isaacs, The New York Times Book Review

"Move over Spenser, make permanent room on the streets of Boston for another sleuth who's big (six feet one), strong and tough as nails but soft at the core."--Entertainment Weekly

"Her first person prose is well-honed, and her touch is sure enough to float her fast-paced narrative while still allowing for sharp development of an intriguing cast of characters...Best of all, Barnes can turn a phrase well enough to make even Paretsky and Grafton jealous."--Houston Chronicle

"It's always a pleasure to spend time with this zesty detective...Carlotta has class and spirit to spare."--Baltimore Sun
-- Review

Customer Reviews

Good Stuff, Like the Early Robert B. Parker's Spenser Novels
If you like private eye stuff, particularly set in Boston, be sure to take a look at this one. As the review title suggests, this book reminded me of Parker's early Spenser books, before Spenser became bosom buddies with the cops who used to loathe him, and before, in George V. Higgins' words, Spenser started flying, "off to London like he was trying out for his own TV series."

Linda Barnes is not Robert B. Parker, and this fact does not leave me in sorrow's clutch. Barnes knows contemporary Boston, and writes about it well, though I have to admit, there's not enough Big Dig in this for a Big Dig freak like me. There is, however, a good story, starting simply, but quickly becoming complicated. Barnes' PI Carlotta Carlyle, like Spenser a former cop, like Spenser obstinate and determined to get her own questions answered, is a PI you want to stick with, one you can admire. Carlotta gets out there and ruins her pantyhose if necessary to get the job done (though she does cuss about the cost, and remind herself to dress down the next time she has to wiggle under a fence in the mud).

Bluntly, don't get this one for the Big Dig. Get this one for a first-rate job of storytelling, and a terrific character. If Julianne Moore isn't looking at at least one screen treatment based on Carlotta, there's no justice in Hollywood (OK, I know).

Barnes back after 4 years off - story is fair but not great
We include ourselves in the Linda Barnes' fan club having read her previous dozen books (4 - Sprague, 8 - Carlyle); so naturally we awaited this latest in the zany P.I. Carlotta Carlyle series with great interest despite the 4-year hiatus since her 1999 "Flashpoint". Set against the multi-billion dollar Boston highway/tunnel project of the same nickname, "Dig" offers just enough of our familiar characters to please, but a somewhat convoluted plot left us a little hollow for much of the story. Carlotta is pretty much her usual self, although there's no cab driving / taxi firm hijinks in this one. Her tenant Roz and her cop friends barely put in an appearance either, as she temporarily works for an ex-cop Eddie Conklin to investigate potential contractor fraud on the Project, while at the same time privately working a missing person case for a wealthy Bostonite lady. That the two efforts intertwine about halfway through is a bit of a stretch, and before it's all over, the FBI is all over the place with issues that connect back all the way to the Waco incident. All in all, the plot generated suspense, but also generated considerable implausibility.

We don't know what Linda was doing her last four years. If it was to make this story zing, in our opinion she might have been better to stick to the familiar terrain of her previous tales and save us much of the torture. We don't want Carlotta turned into V.I. Warshawski - we'll read about her if we want frenetic action from start to finish. Rather, we expected a bit more shrewd street work from Carlyle, a little more humor, a little more running around with her usual friends. So - our fond friend is back, but perhaps not in the best of form. The fan club won't skip it, but to the uninitiated, hardly the best Carlyle episode.

Carlotta Digs Up All the Dirt!
Carlotta Carlyle is one of my very favorite detective characters. Everything about her is intensely real, from her six-foot height to the red hair atop her head. No way she's going to blend in. Life is difficult for her, and she finds herself scrounging to make ends meet. Driving a cab to moonlight is one choice, and doing multiple full-time detective jobs is another. You've got to love this hard-working woman.

As someone who has been living through the Big Dig project in Boston for many years, I was thrilled when Ms. Linda Barnes decided to build a story around it. All we could see during the construction was a big mess that moved daily, disrupting all traffic and making it impossible to know how to go anywhere.

Mention Boston and public works, and the idea of corruption may cross your mind too. After all, Mayor Curley served Bean town from a jail cell during his administration. So when Carlotta is hired to look into Big Dig corruption, I had the story all set in my mind. Carlotta would find the corruption and it would lead right back to the Commonwealth's most well-heeled and established citizens. Wrong!

There's a lot of humor in this story as Carlotta tries to look inconspicuous, yet find out what's going on at the work site. Someone has called in a tip that things are rotten in Denmark. She hasn't found out much by the time that a mysterious death occurs.

At the same time, she takes on an unusual missing person's case. A young dog handler has gone astray, while leaving her dog behind. It doesn't make much sense . . . and Carlotta cannot turn up many leads.

So for most of the story, you see Carlotta having problems rather than being a Superhero Wonder Woman detective. I find that refreshing.

Then, late in the book, the plot develops at a breakneck pace . . . and I couldn't read the remaining pages fast enough to find out what was going on. I was particularly pleased to see that the solution to the mystery themed into another Boston tradition, celebrating Patriot's Day.

Weaving all of the threads together is done masterfully. Even if you usually only like to read about male private detectives solving crimes, you should try this book. I'm sure you'll like it!

After you finish enjoying Big Dig (which is slowly drawing to an end now that the tunnels are open for traffic), I suggest that take a copy with you the next time you are in Boston and imagine the scenes taking place while the main construction was going on. It would make for a great Halloween night!