Linda Barnes

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Linda Barnes's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    20 Books (2 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1982
  • Latest Book:
    April 2013
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Full Series List in Order

A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery

0.5 - Lucky Penny (Nov-1996)
1 - A Trouble of Fools (Nov-1987)
2 - The Snake Tattoo (Feb-1989)
3 - Coyote (Oct-1990)
4 - Steel Guitar (Oct-1991)
5 - Snapshot (May-1993)
6 - Hardware (Feb-1995)
7 - Cold Case (Mar-1997)
8 - Flashpoint (Sep-1999)
9 - The Big Dig (Nov-2000)
10 - Deep Pockets (Mar-2004)
11 - Heart of the World (May-2006)
12 - Lie Down with the Devil (Aug-2008)

A Michael Spraggue Mystery

1 - Blood Will Have Blood (1982)
2 - Bitter Finish (Jan-1983)
3 - Dead Heat (Mar-1984)
4 - Cities of the Dead (Jan-1986)

Book List in Order: 20 titles

  • Blood Will Have Blood

    • / Amateur Sleuth
    • Buy Buy
    A Michael Spraggue Mystery - 1

    Famed theater director Arthur Darien's production of "Dracula" is in trouble. Strange and macabre jokes -- including a batch of literally mixed Bloody Marys -- are unnerving the cast and threatening to close the play before opening night. Michael S...

  • Bitter Finish

    A Michael Spraggue Mystery - 2

    SOUR GRAPES IN NAPA VALLEY Michael Spraggue is a wealthy private eye turned movie actor. He's in the middle of making a trashy Hollywood movie about--what else?--a private eye, when he gets an emergency phone call from Kate Holloway, His someti...

  • Dead Heat

    A Michael Spraggue Mystery - 3

    SOMETIMES RUNNERS COLLAPSE FROM MORE THAN FATIGUE.... Michael Spraggue has put sleuthing behind him in favor of the relative sanity of the actor's life. Currently appearing six nights a week in Shakespeare and Brecht at the Harvard Rep, Spraggue ...

  • Cities of the Dead

    A Michael Spraggue Mystery - 4

    AT MARDI GRAS EVEN THE DEAD CAN'T REST.... Steam rises from the streets and strippers dance in light as bleary as a drunk's vision. But actor and part-time private eye Michael Spraggue didn't come to New Orleans to gawk. He's trying to get an innoce...

  • A Trouble of Fools

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 1

    It's the kind of case that has "NO!" written all over it. But Carlotta Carlyle--Boston's six-foot-one, redheaded, wisecracking, taxi-driving ex-cop--has a P.I. license getting moldy from disuse, so she takes on the search for a little old lady's miss...

  • The Snake Tattoo

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 2

    Carlotta Carlyle, ex-cop, struggling private eye, and 6'1" of long tall redhead, takes any case that walks through the door. This time the door opens twice. First in is her old partner, Lieutenant Mooney of the Boston police, unfairly charged with br...

  • Coyote

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 3

    WHY CARLOTTA? A blazing redhead, a loner with a cabbie's license and a mean volleyball spike, Carlotta Carlyle has a talent for trouble. Tonight her mysterious client speaks broken English and clutches a newspaper detailing the discovery of a muti...

  • Steel Guitar

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 4

    They say you meet all kinds when you're driving a hack. That's certainly the case for Boston PI Carlotta Carlyle, who gets an unexpected fare while moonlighting behind the wheel. It's singer Dee Willis, Carlotta's ex-friend and former band mate, who ...

  • Snapshot

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 5

    Every Friday a child's snapshot arrives at the Boston office of P.I. Carlotta Carlyle. There's no note. No return address. Just pictures of the child as a newborn, as a toddler, as a preschooler. Maybe Carlotta should have tossed them all in the tras...



  • Hardware

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 6

    In her sixth spellbinding adventure, Carlotta Carlyle, the 6'1" redheaded P.I. from Boston, takes on a case that draws her into the mysterious shadow of computer technology, where information is cheap, and privacy may be a thing of the past. Part-tim...

  • Miss Gibson

    in Women On the Case

    Crime and detection are women's work for twenty-six great writers in this second brilliant collection of mystery fiction edited by Sara Paretsky. From wicked irony and white-collar crime in Amanda Cross's "The Baroness," to the chilling "Only a Woman...

  • Lucky Penny

    in Modern Treasury of Great Detective and Murder Mysteries
    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 0.5

    In Lucky Penny, award-winning author Linda Barnes introduces the red-headed, jazz-loving, cab-driving Bostonian and Private Investigator Carlotta Carlyle. As Carlotta lounges in her cab one night while waiting for a fare, the part-time cabbie is acco...

  • Cold Case

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 7

    Twenty-four years ago, teen prodigy Thea Janis vanished from her upper crust Boston prep school. At first called a runaway, she's later named among the victims of a serial killer, a man doing life in Walpole Prison. Then a new manuscript appears ...

  • Flashpoint

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 8

    Carlotta Carlyle, Boston's favorite redheaded, wisecracking P.I., is back in a taut mystery that begins with a seemingly innocent tenant-landlord dispute--and quickly escalates to arson, intrigue, and murder. Carlotta thinks she's simply doing a f...

  • The Big Dig

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 9

    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 ben...

  • Deep Pockets

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 10

    FROM THE IVORY TOWER... Harvard professor Wilson Chaney has a secret and somebody knows it. His adulterous affair with a freshman ended just weeks before she wound up dead. The sole trace of his infatuation is a stack of missing love letters--and th...

  • Heart of the World

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 11

    When private investigator Carlotta Carlyle is wakened by a late-night phone call, she discovers that her "little sister," Paolina, the child with whom she was paired years ago by a local mentoring program, is missing. Carlotta combs the Bosto...

  • Lie Down with the Devil

    A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery - 12

    Bestseller and multiple award -- winning author Linda Barnes returns with the most personal case to date for her popular Boston PI, Carlotta Carlyle. Carlotta, in unfamiliar territory working on her own behalf, finds herself in the middle of a compli...

  • Stealing First

    A short story featuring award-winning author Linda Barnes’ feisty, red-headed, cab-driving, ex-cop Private Investigator, Carlotta Carlyle On a great day to take in a ball game at Fenway, a seemingly harmless run-in with a familiar petty thief throw...



  • The Perfect Ghost

    Mousy 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 and the public schmoozing. But Em’s dependence on Teddy runs deeper than just the job -- Te...

Award-Winning Books by Linda Barnes

The Big Dig
2002 RT Reviewers Choice Award -- PI Novel
Lucky Penny
1986 Anthony Award -- Short Story


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Linda Barnes has published 20 books.

Linda Barnes does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, The Perfect Ghost, was published in April 2013.

The first book by Linda Barnes, Blood Will Have Blood, was published in January 1982.

Yes. Linda Barnes has 2 series.
Author Series
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