Hardware
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4.2 • 34 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Private investigator Carlotta Carlyle’s moonlighting job as a taxi driver turns into the most dangerous, high-octane case of her career
Six-foot-tall, redheaded ex-cop and Boston-based private eye Carlotta Carlyle is “the genuine article: a straightforward, funny, thoroughly American mystery heroine” (New York Post).
When Carlotta can’t sleep—or when money gets tight—she drives a cab. It’s always been a dangerous way to make a living, but lately it’s become truly terrifying. In the last two months, nine cabbies have been savagely beaten and robbed, and every time Carlotta gets behind the wheel, she knows that she could be next.
How then can she refuse when a rival taxi company hires her to investigate the assaults? Thinking she will be making the world a safer place for cab drivers, Carlotta doesn’t suspect that this new case will push her even closer to the edge. The company she works for is co-owned by Sam Gianelli, her sometime lover and a mob-connected businessman whose family knows how to get tough. Drawn into a tangled conspiracy of mafia secrets and high-tech espionage, Carlotta will have to drive faster than ever to stay alive.
Hardware is the 6th book in the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When Boston-area cabbies are targeted in a series of attacks, the professional and personal lives of Carlotta Carlyle bloom with mystery in this lively yarn. The part-time PI and part-time cab driver last seen in Snapshot is hired by the Small Taxi Association to investigate the attacks. On the same day, she discovers four microphones hidden at Green & White, the company she drives for. Sam Gianelli, her ``on-again, off-again lover'' and Green & White's co-proprietor, wants the bugs left undisturbed-though he won't say why. Sam's friend Frank sells Carlotta a new computer; on the way home she and Sam are shot at. Violence edges closer to Green & White, leading to serious injury for Sam and his co-owner, Gloria. Unexpectedly, Frank the computer maven, whom even Roz, Carlotta's tenant with a lively taste for men and the bizarre, finds odd, resurfaces. Before Carlotta can sort out taxi industry troubles, the past intrudes on the present and she discovers some surprises about Sam. The puzzle works well, but mainly it's Carlotta and her interactions with the well-drawn folks around her that make Barnes's story hum. Simultaneous release from BDD audio; author tour; rights: Gina Maccoby Literary Agency.
