Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #484886 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-28
• Released on: 2004-12-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.com Review
Like Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, and Sara Paretsky, Linda Barnes deserves credit for usurping the male dominance over American private-eye fiction in the 1970s and '80s. Her six-foot-tall, redheaded Boston snoop and part-time cabbie, Carlotta Carlyle, started out (in 1987's A Trouble of Fools) as a savvy, self-reliant former cop whose potential to become Sam Spade in a skirt was mitigated by her emotional sensitivity and resistance to brash risk-taking. More than two decades later, Carlotta shows herself to be as compelling and credible as ever--if a bit wiser--in Deep Pockets.

"Look, I made a mistake. I slept with a student," concedes Wilson Chaney, an African-American professor at Harvard Medical School, as he hires Carlotta to find and foil the person responsible for blackmailing him with love letters he'd sent to Denali Brinkman, a startlingly attractive freshman rowing champ who evidently committed both suicide and arson at a Charles River boathouse. Carlotta thinks to curtail this squeeze by unearthing information damaging to the extortionist. But when the suspect turns out to be another of Denali's boyfriends, 30-year-old ex-con Benjy Dowling, and then Dowling perishes in a hit-and-run involving Chaney's van, the PI must reassess both her tactics and assumptions about this investigation. Is her client, already afraid of losing his job over an ill-advised intimacy, now being framed for murder, perhaps by another one of Dowling's blackmail targets? Could Chaney's troubles be traced to a rival or enemy at Harvard? Or to his wealthy, pregnancy-obsessed wife? Or maybe to his cutting-edge research into drug treatments for attention-deficit disorder? As Carlotta confronts the case's multiplying puzzles, she wonders whether there are answers to be found in Denali's sketchy past--answers that could not only clear Chaney, but protect this gutsy gumheel from an increasingly dangerous adversary.

Carlotta's distractions in Deep Pockets are numerous, from her ebbing relationship with a black FBI agent to her concern over the half-dressing habits of her fast-developing "little sister," Paolina. Yet she rarely misses a clue--except, of course, when it adds to the story's tensions. Barnes fails to fully explain a couple of dramatic plot turns in this 10th Carlotta Carlyle novel (after The Big Dig), and you needn't boast a Harvard sheepskin to figure out her tale's principal twist well in advance of its conclusion; however, those faults are outweighed by one's delight in seeing the pertinacious Ms Carlyle again get her man without entirely losing her femininity. --J. Kingston Pierce

From Publishers Weekly
In her 10th robust Carlotta Carlyle mystery (after 2002's The Big Dig), Barnes weaves an intricate web with a pleasingly poisonous spider at its center. African-American Harvard professor Wilson Chaney asks Boston PI Carlotta for help because someone is blackmailing him over his affair with Delani Brinkman, a seductive Harvard rowing star. When Delani turns up dead in a boathouse on the Charles, incinerated on a gasoline-soaked futon, a note left by the victim suggests suicide. But Brinkman herself remains quite the puzzle—a loner who slept with her kayak in her room, then abandoned her dorm to camp in the university boathouse: "Her mother was an American Indian.... Her father was Swiss, but she didn't learn that until much later. She had no brothers and sisters. She never went hungry, but there wasn't much kindness in her life." When Delani's ex-con boyfriend is killed by a hit-run driver on a dark city street, suspicion points back to the urbane Professor Chaney—or does it? Almost every character carries a secret, including Carlotta, who's gingerly resuming her romance with a charming Mafioso. If a couple of red herrings aren't fully explained, Barnes makes superb use of town-gown tensions and the contrasting worlds of Harvard bureaucrats, blue-collar cons, the Brattle Street swells and more. The twists and turns in this nail-biter are at once startling without ever becoming absurd.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Carlotta Carlyle brings a lot of heft to her Boston private-eye business. Formerly a police detective, on both major-crime and homicide beats, Carlyle applies hard-won street smarts to the job. What makes Carlyle convincing as she narrates her adventures is the lightness with which she carries her background and the wit she applies to her observations of clients and her own situation. (She has a lot in common with Robert B. Parker's Spenser, in both locale and personality.) In the tenth Carlyle case, a Harvard prof seeks Carlotta's help when he is blackmailed over an affair he had with a student who subsequently died in a boathouse fire. Carlyle becomes much more interested in the student's death than the professor's plight and moves into an examination of Harvard cover-ups of student tragedies. Although the plotting here sometimes seems forced and the narrative rambling, Carlyle remains an intriguing protagonist, and her latest will be of interest to fans of the series and of female private eyes in general. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Engaging, well paced female PI / Cop mystery
The Carlotta Carlyle series is one of the best of the strong, independent, female private investigator / cop genre. In the tenth installment, Deep Pockets, Carlotta's case involving a Harvard professor is a referral from her new boyfriend, FBI Agent Leon Wells. Carlotta has little empathy for her new client, not only because of his elitist affiliation with the "world's greatest university," but because the case involves blackmail over the client's love affair with an undergraduate student. Carlotta's uncomfortable relationship with the Harvard professor parallels her equally uncomfortable relationship with Leon. Both men represent "the establishment" to Carlotta, questioning her work methods and her independent desire to be in control.

Carlotta's case quickly expands from blackmail to murder, and introduces complications from her contacts at the Boston Police Department, a cleaning contractor, the professor's eccentric wife, and Harvard University administration. Lies of omission and double crosses by the suspects lead Carlotta in a variety of directions, including some half-truths and breaking and entering of her own. Carlotta's working activities occur against a backdrop of her relationships with Roz, her roommate, and Carlotta's unofficial little sister, Paolo, who is struggling with her awakening sexuality and puberty. As always, Sam Gianelli, Carlotta's ex-boyfriend and mob member, is also haunting her heart and her daydreams.

Deep Pockets is a fast paced, engaging read, and a great addition to this series. The characters and plot are well written and consistent, although the Harvard professor and Leon are a little flat. Carlotta is an appealing hero, largely because of her portrayal as a person with doubts and imperfections and not a superwoman. This is a very good read, relatively fast, and recommended for fans of private investigators and sleuths.

good
A Harvard professor hires Boston private investigator Carlotta Carlyle to track down a blackmailer. The married professor, Wilson Chaney, has had an affair with a young student. His reputation and everything he he holds dear in his life is on the line. The student that Wilson had the affair with had been burned to death a month earlier. It was declared a suicide, but was it? Letters to Wilson started shortly after demanding money. After making a payment, the demands still do not stop so Wilson wants Carlotta to find the blackmailer and reclaim the love letters he had written to the student. The more Carlotta digs into the case the more complicated it becomes including another suspicious death.

This is the tenth in the Carlotta Carlyle series. Linda Barnes does a good job of telling enough of Carlotta backstory to make this book totally stand on its own. I enjoyed the tall, red-haired, independent, strong, stubborn, and oddly vulnerable character of Carlotta. The story really grabbed me from the first page. It seemed to drag a bit in the middle, but really had a suspenseful ending with an unexpected twist. There was a nice balance between Carlotta personal story and the case she was working on. The plot was not overly complicated and easy to follow. Linda Barnes fans won't be disappointed.

Fabulous detective story
Boston area private investigator Carlotta Carlyle noticed the mark trailing her throughout Harvard Square. She pulls a magician's trick and accosts her tracker. He insists he was not stalking her, but instead working up the courage to consult with her in a professional capacity.

He explains that "his friend" is being blackmailed and paying failed to end the nightmare. Tenured Harvard Professor Wilson Chaney admits he had an affair with a freshman student Denali Brinkman. Realizing that revelation of his taboo indiscretion would end his career Wilson hires Carlotta to uncover the identity of his blackmailer so he can persuade the person to stop. Though Carlotta literally (only slightly that is) and figuratively (totally) looks down at her client especially over the age of his lover, she accepts the case.

Carlotta digs deep into the background of her client and his former teen lover. She searches for threads at the University and in Wilson's personal life, finding a vehicular death link. Unable to resist, Carlotta goes down the side path that this death takes her not realizing how dangerous her detour will soon prove as there is much more to this case than simply a blackmailed cheating husband

In her tenth appearance, Carlotta remains an invigorating private investigator. Her latest case DEEP POCKETS is a fabulous detective story that starts rather differently, but quite exhilaratingly before turning into a suspense thriller. Carlotta deals with ethics issues throughout the tale beginning with her odious client and continuing when she chose a lane that might not be in the best interest of the professor. This six foot one former police officer still kicks butt as one of Boston's finest.

Harriet Klausner