Sat 4 Dec 2010
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: LINDA BARNES – Snapshot.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[5] Comments
LINDA BARNES – Snapshot. Carlotta Carlyle #5. Delacorte Press, hardcover, 1993. Dell, paperback, 1994. Reprinted several times since, in both hardcover and paperback.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that Linda Barnes is in the top five female PI writers, and I may enjoy her more than any but Marcia Muller. Her ex-cop, part-time cabby PI, Carlotta Carlyle, is one of my favorites.
Her latest case begins when a psychiatrist brings a woman to her office who is obsessed with the recent death of her child from a form of leukemia. The woman is not convinced that something didn’t go awry at the highly regarded hospital where the child died, and the psychiatrist thinks that having Carlyle lay her doubts to rest is good therapy.
He has no idea that her fears are well-founded; the child’s doctor was one of the country’s best. Carlotta takes the case, and begins her investigation.
At the same time, she has other problems. Someone steals her trash cans in the middle of the night, trash and all, and her 11-year-old Hispanic Little Sister has run away from home, and has been seen regularly in the company of a grown man.
Barnes continues to impress me. Carlyle is a believable human being, possessed of her fair share of problems but refreshingly free from the anger and/or angst of so many of today’s characters.
The supporting cast is nicely drawn, and Barnes tells her story well in straightforward prose. The plot didn’t have me tearing my hair out, which considering my luck with the rest of the PI novels I’ve read lately was a major triumph. Good book.
The Carlotta Carlyle series —
1. A Trouble Of Fools (1987)
2. The Snake Tattoo (1989)
3. Coyote (1990)
4. Steel Guitar (1991)
5. Snapshot (1993)
6. Hardware (1995)
7. Cold Case (1997)
8. Flashpoint (1999)
9. The Big Dig (2000)
10. Deep Pockets (2004)
11. Heart of the World (2006)
12. Lie Down with the Devil (2008)
December 4th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Damn, but I miss Barry.
December 4th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
I never met Barry, alas, but from what people tell me, he was a great guy. He and I conversed only through our reviews and our mutual DAPA-Em zines. In my opinion he was the best fan reviewer ever, bar none.
December 5th, 2010 at 12:35 am
While I can’t say that I met Linda Barnes, she was at the first or second mystery convention I ever went to. It was in Boston, which means that it was probably put on by Jim Huang and the folks at Drood Review. In fact, I’m sure it was.
She, William Tapply, Jeremiah Healy and perhaps one other mystery writer starting around the same time hung out together. The other writer, if there was one, may have been Philip Craig, but I don’t really think it was he.
It also was not Robert B. Parker, who did come for a short while, but he was already a success, and he spent most of his his time in well-deserved adulation (in my opinion).
Barry liked her work, and do I, although looking at her list of Carlotta Carlyle books, she’s another author I see I’ve fallen way behind on.
It’s good to see that she’s managed to keep being published. It’s a hard road to keep traveling on, never making it to the A-list, but nonetheless keeping on keeping on.
You can check out her website at http://lindabarnes.com/index.html
December 5th, 2010 at 10:03 am
I agree about Barry. Most often we shared a very similar taste in mysteries, though there were occasional exceptions (like his liking for Kinky Friedman’s “mysteries”). And he was very generous in lending his books to friends.
I liked Barnes and Carlotta too, but a couple of books after the one Barry reviewed I drifted away from the series and haven’t gone back for the last five books, even though I mean to.
December 5th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
I’m still keeping up with the Barnes’ series and I enjoyed revisiting an earlier book in Barry’s predictably incisive review.
I met him at one of the Dallas conventions and one afternoon, while most of the attendees were otherwise occupied,
we sat in the lobby and talked at some length. His contributions were highlights of the few years when he was a member and he joined too soon the ranks of irreplaceable former members.