Deep Pockets (Carlotta Carlyle)

Rating:
Summary: A smooth ride featuring an ex-cabbie
Review: Deep Pockets opens with a classic PI ploy: a mysterious client doesn't want to reveal his name, but reluctantly admits he's in big trouble. A Harvard professor, he's being blackmailed about an affair with a student.

Soon we realize there's something out of the ordinary about this student. And soon the client, Wilson Cheney, has a lot more to worry about. He could be facing trial for murder.

Unlike other reviewers, I enjoyed Deep Pockets and wasn't tempted to skip to the end. I didn't anticipate the plot twist and enjoyed following heroine Carlotta as she systematically followed clues to learn the truth. Author Barnes serves up some of the smoothest, easiest to follow writing of the series.

The subplots of Carlotta's personal life were easy to skip over. Barnes does a good job of communicating the lack of chemistry with her FBI agent lover, but I'd like to see more sparks.

And Carlotta's "little sister" Paolina is ready to go up and fly the nest. As a minor character, she doesn't add anything to hold our interest. Barnes needs to give this teenager some faults to add conflict or let her disappear into boarding school, the way Parker moved Paul Giacomin offstage after Early Autumn.

The motive for the plot, relating to some research miracle drug, is handled well. Personally, my eyes glaze over when I read about drug discoveries and old manuscripts turned up in attics. But that's just me.

And I think Barnes is a little too rough on Harvard -- she comes across almost as resentful. Robert Parker, the other Boston author, managed some sardonic quips about an imaginary university. And Susan Conant humorously compares Harvard to dog training schools. Barnes is too heavy-handed and the school scenes could have been placed anywhere -- she hasn't picked up the Harvard aura.

Could this Denali character have gotten past admissions? Maybe. . But I think Harvard would have taken it in stride. They'll be around a long time.

Rating:
Summary: Not Deep But Boring: Deep Pockets by Linda Barnes
Review: Picking up an unspecified short time after events in "The Big Dig" Private Investigator Carlotta Carlyle has a sense that someone is watching her as she runs errands. She soon spots him and he isn't very good at tailing her. She eventually confronts the man who isn't very good at hiring a private investigator either.

What the middle aged black man is good at is being a professor at nearby Harvard University. Dr. Wilson Chaney has a major problem. He recently had an affair with a student in one of his classes who subsequently died after the affair ended. He can't deny the affair should word leak out as someone has proof in the form of love letters he wrote the dead woman. Someone is using those letters to blackmail the professor, one letter at a time. He has already paid once, thinking that would be the end of it. Of course, it wasn't and now the blackmailer is back. The blackmailer is offering to sell him another letter at a hefty price increase.

For the professor, the problem isn't that he is black and the student was white. The issue is that this was the latest in a whole series of affairs he has conducted over the years, often with students. The political climate at Colleges and Universities has changed and with families suing schools, such behavior is no longer expected, accepted, and tolerated. It could cost him his prestigious, though non-tenured, position at Harvard as well as what is left of his shaky marriage. He can't afford to lose either for a variety of reasons. There are other considerations as well, which he refuses to specify, and Dr. Chaney wants help.

Despite the fact that Carlyle finds the man and his behavior to her and others despicable, she agrees to accept the case and begins looking for the blackmailer. Her mission is not to involve law enforcement but to instead, find a way to blackmail the blackmailer so that he or she stops. Carlyle has a couple of ideas how to go about this and as she works, it becomes increasingly clear that neither idea has any chance of success. In fact, as she investigates, the case becomes increasingly complex and goes in ways that she never saw coming and she has no idea who is doing what. But the blackmailer knows exactly what Carlyle is doing and what she wants and has no intention of putting up with Carlyle wandering around getting in the way and ruining a perfectly good payday.

While an interesting premise, something went wrong in the execution. Not only are most of the characters outside of Carlyle's circle of friends despicable in many ways, the read itself is flat and boring. While Carlyle tells the reader repeatedly how upset she is, how much she misses Sam (her on again off again love interest who now happens to be a major player in the Mob and not around), or how confused she is about her new relationship with FBI Agent Leonard Wells (first introduced in "The Big Dig") we never feel it. Instead, while constantly told, the connection with the reader is never made and as such, for this reader at least, never drawn into the world of the book. Left out and looking in, this slow book moves ponderously forward as Carlyle ruminates endlessly on what to do.

It doesn't matter if it is her personal life or her professional one, she constantly reminds one and all that they have to take her as is, and then doesn't have a clue what to do next. Unfortunately that has been the underlying theme of the last couple novels and this is no exception. While often thinking about her love life and how messed up it is she drifts from one weak lead to another working the case. In almost every meeting, the character she deals with is from the lower end of the gene pool and should be encouraged to crawl back under the rock he or she came from.

The ending does finally come after 310 pages but it takes a long time to get there. For those that are already familiar with the series, this one is one to skip. Nothing new happens and no advancement at all occurs in terms of character development. For those new to the series, this one could easily be read as a stand alone as except for a few vague references to the past, it deals with the present and does not reveal events from previous books. However, while it is a stand alone in that sense, it is not a good introduction to the author or her normally enjoyable work.

Rating:
Summary: Carlotta seems back to her old fun self in this good mystery
Review: We'll admit that the tall volleyball enthusiast, blues lover, and quirky lady PI (and part-time cabbie) Carlotta Carlyle is one of our favorite characters, having read all previous nine entries in this series. We enjoyed "Pockets" more than Barnes' just prior effort, "The Big Dig", as in that novel our familiar supporting cast were mysteriously all absent. Even Carlotta herself seemed a bit "off her game" though the story itself and her solving of the case concluded a decent enough plot. In this latest novel, our friends "little sister" Paolina, ex-lover Sam Gianelli, new boyfriend Leon, Cab company owner extraordinaire Gloria, and the wild housemate/helper Roz, all combine to add humor and interest to a clever story line that builds suspense as new clues come to light. Plenty of others have summarized the plot, but the gist of it is that a Harvard professor is being blackmailed for sleeping with a student (mostly at her initiative); he hires our Carlotta to see if she can get it stopped. The student commits a fatal arson/suicide; and then later the seeming blackmailer gets run over by the professor's stolen car in a hit and run. Sensing too many coincidences and a probable frame, Carlotta discovers a very interesting twist surfacing from the investigation into the mysterious student's background. Defining the real crimes and finding the real criminals concludes the entertaining tale, while some violence to Carlyle near the end adds to the suspenseful outcome.

Carlotta Carlyle is very much the competent leading lady in the ilk of Sue Grafton and V.I. Warshawski. To us, her endearing qualities and down to earth personality, along with a crew of helpers we have come to know and enjoy, contribute to a feeling that her stories are somewhat like letters home from camp -- while we don't always care exactly what happens, we enjoy hearing from our Linda Barnes friends and family!