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Summary: Welcome Back Carlotta
Review: Linda Barnes brings back one of my favorite PI's in THE BIG DIG. Carlotta Carlyle is a remarkable creation. I thought so at the start in her famous "Penny" short story debut. I still think so now. In THE BIG DIG, Barnes entangles Carlotta in that big mess in Boston nicknamed the big dig. It has a great plot and countless memorable characters. A great work by a great writer!
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Summary: Just A Little Something Missing
Review: Namely the supporting cast. While I was glad not have to waste much time reading about the annoying Paolina, I did miss Mooney and Gloria, who've really become a big part of this series. And the cameos by Roz and Sam were minor.Carlotta is a wonderful character, but her supporting cast is wonderful too...bring them back!
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Summary: The Big Dig is a crushing bore!
Review: Ninth in the Private Investigator Carlotta Carlyle series finds the tall red head detective in the usual binds. Her checkbook is empty, her love live is virtually non-existent, she still pines for the Sam Gianelli (son of a powerful mob boss) and now her leg hurts almost all the time thanks to being shot in the thigh in the last novel. So when Eddie Conklin wants to see her about a job, she quickly agrees to meet with him. After all, not only is he friends with her father from the days when he was a cop, Eddie helped Carlotta when during her days on the job and since then from time to time. Plus, he is offering steady employment and she needs the money. He wants her to help investigate possible fraud at a variety of construction sites at "The Big Dig" in Downtown Boston. "The Big Dig" is officially named "The Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project" and is a massive road-building project in the heart of Boston. The project has been beset by cost overruns and construction delays as well as allegations of fraud and organized crime. In response, a hotline of sorts where folks can call in complaints has been setup and one of the complaints has been assigned to Eddie. He wants Carlotta's help because the allegation is against Horgan Construction. Eddie knows the Horgan family pretty well and believes that the allegation is false. He wants Carlotta to go undercover and investigate in exchange for a steady paycheck and more work after this case is solved. She agrees and before long has some vague suspicions about certain things but no real proof of a problem. With the sudden apparent accidental death of an employee on site, it becomes clear that Eddie hasn't been totally upfront and honest about the situation and may not want the truth after all. Frustrated, she quickly agrees to take as second case from a potential client that would not have anything to do with Eddie's situation. While she appreciates the paycheck, she wants the freedom to work a case her way and does so involving a missing roommate. She believes she can work that case in her off hours when she isn't working the other one with no one being the wiser. The two cases pull her in opposite directions leaving her spinning her wheels in each and becoming increasing frustrated with the shallow characters that populate the novel around her. According to the book jacket this novel is "Suspenseful, unpredictable, and vivid, The Big Dig is a startling return to form for one of the masters of the crime genre." Actually, this book is not any of those things in any way, shape or form. While promotional statements on book jackets are bound to be excessive at times, the reality of the book makes the above statement a damnable lie. This is an extremely slow moving book where Carlotta through sheer dumb luck stumbles her way to solving the case. It always helps if the criminals are too stupid to be believed and in this case, their ignorance suspends the believability of the book. Furthermore, the plot and the resulting storylines are weak, the action is tepid at best, the solitary sex scene is gratuitous and amazingly weak in its conception as well as being an insult to reader intelligence, and the characters are shallow and very predictable in their actions. The end result of this 275-page novel is crushing boredom and at least one very, very disappointed Carlotta Carlyle fan.
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Summary: readers will dig this hard-boiled urban noir
Review: Once The Big Dig is finished the highway system congestion in Boston and the surrounding areas should ease up considerably. Estimated at two billion dollars, the cost is now at fourteen billion with no end in sight. Private detective Carlotta Carlyle is hired to go undercover and look into allegations of fraud, but she comes up with nothing to show for her fee. In fact, she is fired from the last site for reasons that make little sense. While working on the Dig Case, Carlotta is also pursuing a missing person's case. Wealthy socialite Dana Endicott wants Carlotta to find her missing friend and roommate who left one weekend to visit her parents and never returned. Nobody, including her parents, has seen or heard from her. While investigating both cases simultaneously Carlotta finds an unexpected link that send her and the FBI scrambling to prevent the slaughter of thousands of innocents. Readers who like a hard-boiled urban noir private detective novel are going to love the BIG DIG. The plot is fast-paced, the story line is credible and the characters are totally realistic. Linda Barnes' latest installment in her long running series is her best one to date as there are a lot of twists and turns in this book. Readers will never lose interest, not even for a moment. Harriet Klausner
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Summary: Carlotta undercover as a temp secretary
Review: One of my favourite female PIs returns, working undercover as a secretary on a building site. As well as loving this series, I was intrigued by its setting within the context of the real life construction project known as The Big Dig in Boston, Massachusettts. Carlotta has been asked to temp as a secretary to check possible fraud on the building site - things take a scarier turn as commonly in crime fiction. She is rather bored though, and can't resist an opportunity to take on a more typical private assignment on the side. Meanwhile, old characters return but mainly to reinforce the point that you can't turn back the clock. "Little Sister" Paolina who Carlotta mentors is turning into a rebellious young woman, and it's doubtful Carlotta can stop her making her own mistakes. And her old flame Sam is moving in a direction which doesn't feel too positive either. I enjoyed this book immensely, although it was quite sad in places. Luci
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Summary: Carlotta's undercover at the Big Dig.
Review: PI Carlotta Carlyle has been hired to work undercover searching for fraud on Boston's Big Dig. She is to be a mild-mannered secretary working in a construction trailer. This is not what Carlotta had in mind.
She also ends up, with the help of her little sister, being hired in a missing person's case. Veronica James left for a weekend and never came back. Now her landlady, and friend, wants Carlotta to find her. She hits one brick wall after another in her search for Veronica
Things aren't going much better in the fraud investigation. Then a construction worker dies and Carlotta isn't sure it was an accident.
There's a break-in at Veronica's. Carlotta isn't too sure things are what they seem here as well.
Carlotta ends up putting herself in some dangerous situations to try to bring both cases to a close.
I recommend this book. I really enjoy Carlotta. I must admit this wasn't one of my tops in this series, but it was an enjoyable read. I think people who have lived through the Big Dig in Boston relate better to this story.
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Summary: Lost Kids
Review: The title is attractive. Everyone knows about the huge project in Boston. Carlotta Carlyle, former cop, runs a Detective Agency. The Dig is the biggest construction project in history. Carlotta joins up with a former colleague's outfit, Foundation Security, to investigate fraud at the Dig. She uses the name Carla Evans on the job with Hogan Construction. The investigation is being pursued through the office of the Inspector General. Carlotta is given no names, no clues. Doing office work in the trailer, she concentrates on the computer system. What a great idea for a book. Clearly a former Boston police officer would encounter the Dig in the course of her work. Notwithstanding the fact that she is now working full-time for the time being for another concern, she does entertain a request to track a missing person. How do cops manage the frustration of dead ends, she asks herself. The answer is a lot of divorces and a lot of drinking. Carlotta becomes frustrated when both of the investigations run into dead ends. She cannot see the room of the missing person and she is not supposed to delve too deeply into matter at the Dig. Leads emerge when someone dies unexpectedly.
Rating:
Summary: Lost Kids
Review: The title is attractive. Everyone knows about the huge project in Boston. Carlotta Carlyle, former cop, runs a Detective Agency. The Dig is the biggest construction project in history. Carlotta joins up with a former colleague's outfit, Foundation Security, to investigate fraud at the Dig. She uses the name Carla Evans on the job with Hogan Construction. The investigation is being pursued through the office of the Inspector General. Carlotta is given no names, no clues. Doing office work in the trailer, she concentrates on the computer system. What a great idea for a book. Clearly a former Boston police officer would encounter the Dig in the course of her work. Notwithstanding the fact that she is now working full-time for the time being for another concern, she does entertain a request to track a missing person. How do cops manage the frustration of dead ends, she asks herself. The answer is a lot of divorces and a lot of drinking. Carlotta becomes frustrated when both of the investigations run into dead ends. She cannot see the room of the missing person and she is not supposed to delve too deeply into matter at the Dig. Leads emerge when someone dies unexpectedly.
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Summary: Carlotta as a secretary
Review: There have been half a dozen or more Carlotta Carlyle mysteries over the years. She's sort of a melding of elements of Spenser on the one hand and V.I. Warshawski and Kinsey Millhone on the other. The author has a good take on Boston and the culture there, and has a good character which she involves in interesting mysteries. In this installment, she's been hired by a larger P.I. firm which is investigating irregularities on an extremely large construction project, the Big Dig of the title. Basically, they're building a freeway system *under* Boston, so that the traffic won't interfere with the city as much. There's supposedly some sort of fraud going on at a particular construction site, and Carlotta goes undercover to investigate, posing as a secretary. When she gets there she's bored silly by the case, and on impulse takes a second investigation on. In this second investigation, a woman is looking for her tenant, a younger woman who apparently sat for her dog and acted as her companion, and who has driven off with the client's car and not sent word back as to where she is. Carlotta is for a while baffled by this. When things begin to sort themselves out, the book is interesting and the solution satisfying and intelligent. It does take the story a while to get going though (hence only four stars) and there are perhaps one too many coincidences for me. I did enjoy the story, though, and would recommend it.
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Summary: Not the best, but not the worst
Review: This much-delayed book by Linda Barnes is not her best, but it's not her worst either. Carlotta takes on an assignment from a former cop buddy to help investigate alleged fraud on the Big Dig - Boston's multi-billion dollar transportation corridor. While working there, she also takes on a missing person's case from a wealthy woman with secrets of her own. If you've ever been in Boston or love the city from afar, you'll enjoy this book. Barnes catches the ambiance of Boston to perfection - better than Parker in my mind. Barnes has aloowed her character to mature over the years and Carlotta was less foolish in this outing than in others. And it was interesting watching her put two and two together to solve both cases. Barnes, for the most part, didn't keep major pieces of evidence from the reader although she did in one instance and the reader is sure to yell, "No fair!" or some such. This is a good procedural - although there are better ones out there - it is worth the read if you love Boston as I do.
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