Carlotta Carlyle Books In Order

Publication Order of Carlotta Carlyle Books

The Carlotta Carlyle series is a series of highly popular novels based on the mystery genre and written one of the well known American authors named Linda Barnes. This series consists of 12 books in total which were released between the years 1987 and 2008. Each and every novel in this series features the central character in the form of an ex-police officer and current private investigator named Carlotta Carlyle. Author Linda Barnes has described the character of Carlotta Carlyle as a tall and redheaded ex-cop, who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. After losing her job as a police officer in the Boston Police Department, she started earning her living by working as a cab driver. After a short stint in this profession, Carlyle decided to become a private investigator and opened her own private investigation firm. Carlyle is believed to be wearing her heart on the sleeve and often likes to talk tough and straight. She does not care who she is talking to or what is his or her position as far as she believes that she is making the right point. This is the reason why Carlyle often attracts trouble in her life. Sometimes, in the flow of saying the right things she ends up saying certain things that she should not say. Her habit of being straight forward in front of the face of people is one of the primary reasons why she lost her job as a police officer.

Author Linda Barnes started writing the series in the year 1987 and published the debut book of the mystery series towards the end of the same year. The other characteristics of Carlyle as described by author Linda Barnes include being a hard working, dedicated and blues-loving woman, who often looks for trouble in the wrong places. She is described as being as mean as the Hawk and as smart as the character of Spenser, by Margaret Cannon from The Globe and Mail magazine. As the series progresses further, Carlyle goes from being an overly earnest good doer to something to the likes of an avenger who seems willing to cut down the corner, whenever required. In doing so, she generally kept on revealing one or the other forms of her persona, mostly the darker sides of being angry and more conflicted. In most parts of the series, Carlyle appears to be more of a self-righteous woman who likes to listen to no one when it comes to deciding what is right and wrong. In the one of the novels of the series, her character is depicted as turning into a mean woman. She goes on to make up a false story about a runaway husband and a dead child for fooling an older woman who appeared to have faced these troubles in the real sense. By doing so, Carlyle secretly sneers at the woman’s bad taste in the home furnishings and her Okie accent. In several other parts of the Carlotta Carlyle mystery series, Carlyle is depicted as being extremely cute and caring about the well being of children. She even goes on to rescue and then adopt a young Hispanic girl named Paolina. This plot appears to be well-intentioned on the part author Linda Barnes to make the character of Carlyle look a little more likeable. Overall, the character of Carlyle comes off as a little bit patronizing and almost racist, which is opposite of what the author intended to portray about her.

One of the earliest novels in this series written by author Linda Barnes was released under the title ‘Coyote’. It was published by the Minotaur Book publication in the year 1990. The setting of the story of this book is done in Boston, Massachusetts, The United States. At the beginning of this book, Carlotta Carlyle meets a mysterious woman who asks her to help her find her lost card. At first, the job looked to be quite easy and straightforward one for her. After some time, Carlyle comes to know that the woman has disappeared and her immigration document is found with a different woman. This woman too is found dead. Suddenly, the case goes from being a straightforward one to being an extremely intriguing one for Carlyle. Now, she finds herself to be in a position of not being able to drop the case. After some time, the search reveals that the original client was in some way related to her inner city little sister named Paolina. As a result, Carlyle realizes that it is extremely important for her in seeing the case through. With the help of a handsome agent of the immigration department, who seems to have his own secrets, Carlyle follows the leads of her investigation into a deadly underground world of ferocious aliens as well as the ones to mercilessly hunt them. In the end, she discovers that the place is a dangerous and lawless territory, where the only that she can trust is her wits. As the investigation progresses further, Carlyle finds that nothing remains sacred in the territory.

The next book in the series was titled as ‘Steel Guitar’. It was published by the St. Martin’s publication in the year 1991. In this book, continues to work as a private investigator in Boston and takes up the job as a cab driver in order to keep her identity hidden. While driving one of her fares, she comes across an unexpected situation. Carlyle meets one of her former band mates and ex-friend named Dee Willis, who now works as a singer. Dee is also the person who had stolen Carlyle’s man. Now, with the help of a successful singing career, Dee Willis has risen from the barrooms of Southie to the cover page of the People magazine. She seems to have returned back into the life of Carlyle and along with her, she has brought some trouble also. Dee Willis asks Carlyle to find a mutual friend who was thought to have fallen on difficult times. However, Carlyle realizes that there is much more in the case than what Dee Willis is telling her. She finds out that Dee was getting blackmailed by someone who was claiming that she had stolen the song writing credits and also the fame and money that came with along with them. Soon, a corpse is discovered from the hotel room of Dee Willis which causes the spotlight’s glare to turn cold. In such a situation, Carlyle feels that her past has come to catch up with vengeance to her