Copyright 2002 by Linda Appleblatt Barnes. Published by St Martin’s Press, New York.
This was my first Linda Barnes mystery and I was impressed. She is a very good writer – describes people, places and events vividly and moves the story line along rapidly. I never got bored reading this one.
The protagonist is Carlotta Carlyle, a private investigator who mostly operates independently but in this case was subbing for an agency doing undercover work on Boston’s “Big Dig” – the $14 billion Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel construction project. She was tasked with searching for theft and graft on one of the many construction sites, but soon was investigating the death of a construction worker who was a whistleblower. She also took another job searching for a young woman who had gone missing. The two cases, which initially seemed totally independent, soon converged in a surprising way.
I liked this book very much. Never a dull moment. No crazy coincidences. No huge body count. Just a story that got more interesting with every page.
8 out of 10.