Linda Barnes
Author of A Trouble of Fools
About the Author
Linda Barnes is a writer and educator. She was born in Detroit, Michigan. Barnes graduated from Boston University's School of Fine and Applied Arts majoring in acting, theater education, and English. After graduation, Barnes taught theater in a Massachusetts high school. She wrote a one-act play show more that won a contest sponsored by the Boston Globe. The play Wings was published and performed across the country. Barnes' first crime novel was published in 1981 and featured an amateur detective named Michael Spraggue. She continued with a series of books that featured Spraggue until a short story featured a new detective named Carlotta Carlyle. The first book in that series, A Trouble of Fools, won the American Mystery Award for best private eye novel of 1987. Barnes won the Anthony Award for Best Short Story for Lucky Penny in 1986. Some of her other works include Deep Pockets, Heart Of The World and Lie Down With The Devil. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Photo by Lynn Wayne
Series
Works by Linda Barnes
Further Adventures of Carlotta Carlyle: Three Mystery Stories (The Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries) (2015) 12 copies
The Carlotta Carlyle mysteries. Volume one, The snake tattoo, coyote, and steel guitar (2017) 9 copies
The Michael Spraggue Mysteries: Blood Will Have Blood, Bitter Finish, Dead Heat, and Cities of the Dead (2018) 4 copies
The Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries Volume Two: Snapshot, Hardware, Cold Case, and Flashpoint (The Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries Boxset Book 2) (2018) 3 copies
Multiple 2 copies
Wings 2 copies
Folle intrigo 1 copy
not recorded 1 copy
The Big One 1 copy
Associated Works
Books to Die For: The World's Greatest Mystery Writers on the World's Greatest Mystery Novels (2012) 277 copies, 10 reviews
Nero Wolfe Mysteries: Some Buried Caesar / The Golden Spiders (1938) — Introduction, some editions — 222 copies, 3 reviews
A Modern Treasury of Great Detective and Murder Mysteries (1994) — Contributor — 63 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1949-06-06
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Boston University
- Short biography
- In addition to best selling mysteries, Linda Barnes has also written award- winning plays and short stories.
Born and raised in Detroit, Barnes graduated cum laude from Boston University's School of Fine and Applied Arts. She then went on to become a drama teacher and director at Chelmsford and Lexington, Massachusetts schools. While teaching drama, Barnes wrote two plays, the award-winning "Wings" and "Prometheus."
Among her many honors, Barnes won the Anthony Award and nominations for both the Shamnus Award and the American Mystery Award for Best Short Story for "Lucky Penny" in 1985. In 1987 she received the American Mystery Award for Best Private Eye Novel and nominations for the Edgar, Anthony, and Shamus awards for A Trouble of Fools. The Snake Tattoo was named one of the outstanding books of 1990 by The London Times.
Linda Barnes lives near Boston with her husband and son. - Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Detroit, Michigan, USA
- Places of residence
- Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
Six-word review: Last Carlotta Carlyle mystery is forgettable.
Extended review:
An accidental reread. And that's not good.
I'm sorry to say so, but when I picked this off my bookshelf I thought I still had one to go in the series. Apart from penciled notes (mostly in nonfiction), I handle books so lightly that this one looked untouched. Forty or so pages in, I kept having fleeting feelings of deja vu. But it wasn't until the midpoint that I realized: hey, I read this whole thing before.
Sure show more enough, there it is in my reading journal, December 2012. I wasn't writing reviews of everything then, but even if I had been, I don't think I'd have predicted that I could draw such a complete blank on a recently read murder mystery with a favorite series character that I wouldn't even recognize it in less than 150 pages. Even once I got to the part about a political controversy on the Cape over Indian casinos and I finally caught on, I couldn't remember a thing about how it turns out, who did it or why, never mind how Carlotta's romantic situation was resolved.
I really enjoyed the early books in this 12-book series. The character of Carlotta Carlyle, private investigator and part-time cabbie, was engaging and original. Unlike most series detectives, she sounded like someone I'd like to have coffee with. Perennially homesick as I am, I loved following her around the so-familiar streets of Cambridge and Boston and even down the South Shore; every book felt like a virtual trip home for me. I also got a kick out of the people close to her, charming Sam, serious Mooney, loyal Gloria, and infinitely quirky Roz. But her adopted "little sister" Paolina went from annoying to tiresome to an incredibly obnoxious presence in the stories, and I couldn't even stand to finish the one in which she played a central role--the eleventh book, Heart of the World. (I even analyzed the reasons for this as an exercise for an editing class.) Did author Barnes run out of steam on her too? There hasn't been a new Carlyle mystery since Lie Down with the Devil came out in 2008. I'm getting the feeling that there aren't going to be more.
I'm recalling advice I read years ago when I was editing a newsletter for my chapter of a national organization: when you burn out on the job, you should be the first to know it and not the last.
So, because I wasn't going to get a new library book for another few days, I kept on reading. This time, though, I expected the outcome to fade from mind rapidly. Too bad. Linda Barnes has gone on to write some other things, and I've read and enjoyed one of them so far: The Perfect Ghost. As for Carlotta, I wish she could have ended at a high point. I did enjoy most of the ride, and I'll miss her. show less
Extended review:
An accidental reread. And that's not good.
I'm sorry to say so, but when I picked this off my bookshelf I thought I still had one to go in the series. Apart from penciled notes (mostly in nonfiction), I handle books so lightly that this one looked untouched. Forty or so pages in, I kept having fleeting feelings of deja vu. But it wasn't until the midpoint that I realized: hey, I read this whole thing before.
Sure show more enough, there it is in my reading journal, December 2012. I wasn't writing reviews of everything then, but even if I had been, I don't think I'd have predicted that I could draw such a complete blank on a recently read murder mystery with a favorite series character that I wouldn't even recognize it in less than 150 pages. Even once I got to the part about a political controversy on the Cape over Indian casinos and I finally caught on, I couldn't remember a thing about how it turns out, who did it or why, never mind how Carlotta's romantic situation was resolved.
I really enjoyed the early books in this 12-book series. The character of Carlotta Carlyle, private investigator and part-time cabbie, was engaging and original. Unlike most series detectives, she sounded like someone I'd like to have coffee with. Perennially homesick as I am, I loved following her around the so-familiar streets of Cambridge and Boston and even down the South Shore; every book felt like a virtual trip home for me. I also got a kick out of the people close to her, charming Sam, serious Mooney, loyal Gloria, and infinitely quirky Roz. But her adopted "little sister" Paolina went from annoying to tiresome to an incredibly obnoxious presence in the stories, and I couldn't even stand to finish the one in which she played a central role--the eleventh book, Heart of the World. (I even analyzed the reasons for this as an exercise for an editing class.) Did author Barnes run out of steam on her too? There hasn't been a new Carlyle mystery since Lie Down with the Devil came out in 2008. I'm getting the feeling that there aren't going to be more.
I'm recalling advice I read years ago when I was editing a newsletter for my chapter of a national organization: when you burn out on the job, you should be the first to know it and not the last.
So, because I wasn't going to get a new library book for another few days, I kept on reading. This time, though, I expected the outcome to fade from mind rapidly. Too bad. Linda Barnes has gone on to write some other things, and I've read and enjoyed one of them so far: The Perfect Ghost. As for Carlotta, I wish she could have ended at a high point. I did enjoy most of the ride, and I'll miss her. show less
Carlotta Carlyle is a private detective and part time cab driver. A case comes to her that is as confusing as an overgrown corn maze. Thea Janis disappeared twenty-four years ago when she was only fifteen years old. After much digging Carlotta discovered Thea was a precocious and promiscuous teenager who published a book of poetry to wild success when she was fourteen. In the span of two weeks of working on the case, Carlotta uncovers a tangle of family secrets. Thea's name was actually show more Dorothy Cameron, a gardener from the Cameron family employee also went missing at the same time as Thea, Thea's sister is a schizophrenic, Thea's brother is a politician running for office while his marriage falls apart, and more than one murder has taken place.
Maybe this is a premise I have seen too many times, but the wealth of the Cameron family bored me. Rich woman with an icy demeanor and impeccably dress code has a stranglehold on her adult son, who does nothing but disappoint her. Her beloved daughter went missing twenty-four years ago and has been presumed dead ever since a serial killer confessed to her murder. Her second daughter is in a mental facility battling with schizophrenia. What secrets are hidden beneath the cover of wealth?
On top of all this is a subplot involving Carlotta's little sister and the mafia. Because Cold Case is the seventh Carlotta Carlyle mystery but my first, maybe I've missed some key details outlined in an earlier mystery. show less
Maybe this is a premise I have seen too many times, but the wealth of the Cameron family bored me. Rich woman with an icy demeanor and impeccably dress code has a stranglehold on her adult son, who does nothing but disappoint her. Her beloved daughter went missing twenty-four years ago and has been presumed dead ever since a serial killer confessed to her murder. Her second daughter is in a mental facility battling with schizophrenia. What secrets are hidden beneath the cover of wealth?
On top of all this is a subplot involving Carlotta's little sister and the mafia. Because Cold Case is the seventh Carlotta Carlyle mystery but my first, maybe I've missed some key details outlined in an earlier mystery. show less
Funny, I finished reading this book a year to the day of the day I bought it. Actually, I've read this one before, probably close to when it first came out in the 90s. It shows its age here and there with references to Nynex, Netscape, a CD-ROM phone directory and the relative newness of the internet (and Carlotta's reliance on others to navigate it for her). Overall though it combines the latest case with threads of Carlotta's life that wind through all the books. Mostly involving her show more "little sister" Paolina, although it is very much in the background. The case itself is an on-again-off-again rathole of old secrets and even older money where the application of the latter ensures the former. Well sort of. The old secret here eventually sees the light of day, but I think the reason for the disappearance and the institutionalization were dealt with too lightly, especially Tessa's complicity. show less
Carlotta Carlyle is back. This time she has an assignment to go undercover to monitor rumors of theft on a construction site in the heart of Boston. Only this isn't your ordinary dig site. This is Boston's famous Big Dig. Massachusetts residents will remember that tolls paid along the turnpike were supposed to fund this ginormous project to reroute traffic around one of the oldest cities in the nation. Only, the action isn't hot and heavy enough for Carlotta. She seems to be monitoring the show more theft of...dirt. She decides to moonlight, taking on a missing persons case. Working two separate jobs seems like a win-win for Carlotta until she gets fired from the Big Dig assignment. Isn't it ironic that Carlotta discovers that her undercover assignment is directly tied to her on-the-side case, the disappearance of a dog groomer/waitress? Now Carlotta must find a way back onto the Dig assignment to connect the cases and solve them both.
Big Dig is full of twists and turns. Both the events of Waco, Texas and Oklahoma City play a part in the action. Carlotta finds herself back in the presence of an old flame and finds time to fan a new fire. show less
Big Dig is full of twists and turns. Both the events of Waco, Texas and Oklahoma City play a part in the action. Carlotta finds herself back in the presence of an old flame and finds time to fan a new fire. show less
Lists
Female Author (1)
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 44
- Also by
- 17
- Members
- 4,993
- Popularity
- #5,018
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 81
- ISBNs
- 274
- Languages
- 8
- Favorited
- 11