Available for the first time in one volume: three delectably puzzling mystery stories—including the Anthony Award–winning story "Lucky Penny"—starring the inimitable taxi-driving Boston private investigator Carlotta Carlyle Struggling PI Carlotta Carlyle drives a cab at night to make ends meet. She's almost done with the night shift when a fare tries to rob her, and her moonlighting gig becomes a crime scene. Unfortunately for the thief, nothing ruffles Carlotta. As she figures out why she was targeted, she uncovers startling information. Whether Carlotta is flying cross-country to safeguard a blues musician's priceless guitar or stopping a killing at Fenway Park, this flame-haired, six-foot-one detective knows to never let a felony get in the way of a good time. In these three stories—"Lucky Penny," "Miss Gibson," and "Stealing First,"—acclaimed author Linda Barnes demonstrates precisely what makes Carlotta Carlyle one of...

Hired to find a missing novelist, Boston private investigator Carlotta Carlyle gets tangled up in a cutthroat political campaign Thea Janis was a literary Mozart. She published her first novel at age fourteen, shocking the upper crust of Boston with her frank depiction of blue-blooded indiscretions, and she seemed to have a magnificent career ahead of her. But before Thea could publish her follow-up novel, she mysteriously disappeared and was eventually named as a victim of a serial killer. Twenty-four years later, an admirer of Thea's comes to Carlotta claiming to have evidence that Thea is alive—and still writing. He begs Carlotta to find the onetime prodigy, but there are powerful people, including Thea's prominent family of Boston politicians, who want Thea's second book to stay buried. As a take-no-prisoners gubernatorial race speeds to its climax, Carlotta discovers a secret that could upend the campaign, endanger people's lives, and...

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 persons 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 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...

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...

Available for the first time in one volume: three delectably puzzling mystery stories—including the Anthony Award–winning story "Lucky Penny"—starring the inimitable taxi-driving Boston private investigator Carlotta Carlyle Struggling PI Carlotta Carlyle drives a cab at night to make ends meet. She's almost done with the night shift when a fare tries to rob her, and her moonlighting gig becomes a crime scene. Unfortunately for the thief, nothing ruffles Carlotta. As she figures out why she was targeted, she uncovers startling information. Whether Carlotta is flying cross-country to safeguard a blues musician's priceless guitar or stopping a killing at Fenway Park, this flame-haired, six-foot-one detective knows to never let a felony get in the way of a good time. In these three stories—"Lucky Penny," "Miss Gibson," and "Stealing First,"—acclaimed author Linda Barnes demonstrates precisely what makes Carlotta Carlyle one of...

Helping an old college friend who made it big in the music industry puts Boston PI Carlotta Carlyle in a deadly spotlight She may be Boston's most tenacious private detective, but by night, Carlotta Carlyle is just another cab driver hustling for an honest buck. When blues superstar Dee Willis climbs into her cab, Carlotta isn't starstruck—she's shocked. The two women were friends in college, right up until the day Dee ran off with Carlotta's husband. Now Dee is back in town to play a sold-out concert and Carlotta is too surprised to introduce herself—or to wonder why her old pal is asking to be dropped off in one of Boston's roughest neighborhoods. After saving the blues diva from being ripped to shreds, Carlotta agrees to help her track down an old friend. Soon, a blackmail plot concerning stolen song lyrics is uncovered and a corpse is found in Dee's hotel room. Carlotta will have to work fast to keep her old friend from becoming yet...

Mousy, timid, 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, the negotiating, the public schmoozing. But Em's dependence on Teddy runs deeper than just the job--Teddy is her bridge to the world and the only source of love in her life. So when Teddy dies in a car accident, Em is devastated, alone in a world she doesn't understand. The only way 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 and strength to interview Malcolm the way Teddy would have. She finds Malcolm at once friendlier, more intimidating, and far sexier than she had imagined. But Em soon senses trouble between Malcolm and one of his former stars, the washed-up Brooklyn Pierce, and she...