The Big Dig [Hardcover]

Linda Barnes (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion Books (March 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786863188
• ISBN-13: 978-0786863181
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,805,545 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Detroit; I always say that's where I learned about crime, but I mean no disrespect to a great city. It's also where I learned to love Motown music and do the Stroll. Came to Boston to go to college, and like so many, stayed, awed by the Atlantic Ocean and accessible public transportation. I still love walking Boston's cobbled streets, riding the T, breathing the history.
I started writing while teaching high school theater. Required by my principal to enter a one-act play festival sponsored by the Boston Globe, I cast the play before I actually found it. I had such great students that year, and 12 of them certainly deserved to be in the festival cast. When I couldn't find a one-act with 12 roles (duh), I had to write one myself. The festival was a competition, and darned if we didn't keep on winning, right up to the state finals, where a man came up to me and asked whether he might publish that play. I said yes, wrote more plays, and then segued into crime fiction.
My first Carlotta Carlyle short story was nominated for just about every mystery award going, and the first Carlyle novel, A TROUBLE OF FOOLS, was nominated for an Edgar and a Shamus, and won the American Mystery Award. I've got a new book, the eleventh in the Carlyle series, coming out in May. It's called HEART OF THE WORLD. Check my website for upcoming tour details. For the rest, I'm married, mother of a teenage son, and currently proud to be president of Private Eye Writers of America.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Stuff, Like the Early Robert B. Parker's Spenser Novels, November 30, 2002

By 

P. Falina (Belfast, ME USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Big Dig: A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery (Hardcover)

If you like private eye stuff, particularly set in Boston, be sure to take a look at this one. As the review title suggests, this book reminded me of Parker's early Spenser books, before Spenser became bosom buddies with the cops who used to loathe him, and before, in George V. Higgins' words, Spenser started flying, "off to London like he was trying out for his own TV series."

Linda Barnes is not Robert B. Parker, and this fact does not leave me in sorrow's clutch. Barnes knows contemporary Boston, and writes about it well, though I have to admit, there's not enough Big Dig in this for a Big Dig freak like me. There is, however, a good story, starting simply, but quickly becoming complicated. Barnes' PI Carlotta Carlyle, like Spenser a former cop, like Spenser obstinate and determined to get her own questions answered, is a PI you want to stick with, one you can admire. Carlotta gets out there and ruins her pantyhose if necessary to get the job done (though she does cuss about the cost, and remind herself to dress down the next time she has to wiggle under a fence in the mud).

Bluntly, don't get this one for the Big Dig. Get this one for a first-rate job of storytelling, and a terrific character. If Julianne Moore isn't looking at at least one screen treatment based on Carlotta, there's no justice in Hollywood (OK, I know).

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Barnes back after 4 years off - story is fair but not great, December 1, 2002

By 

Gerald M. Bull "Jerry Bull" (Fairview, TN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Big Dig: A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery (Hardcover)

We include ourselves in the Linda Barnes' fan club having read her previous dozen books (4 - Sprague, 8 - Carlyle); so naturally we awaited this latest in the zany P.I. Carlotta Carlyle series with great interest despite the 4-year hiatus since her 1999 "Flashpoint". Set against the multi-billion dollar Boston highway/tunnel project of the same nickname, "Dig" offers just enough of our familiar characters to please, but a somewhat convoluted plot left us a little hollow for much of the story. Carlotta is pretty much her usual self, although there's no cab driving / taxi firm hijinks in this one. Her tenant Roz and her cop friends barely put in an appearance either, as she temporarily works for an ex-cop Eddie Conklin to investigate potential contractor fraud on the Project, while at the same time privately working a missing person case for a wealthy Bostonite lady. That the two efforts intertwine about halfway through is a bit of a stretch, and before it's all over, the FBI is all over the place with issues that connect back all the way to the Waco incident. All in all, the plot generated suspense, but also generated considerable implausibility.

We don't know what Linda was doing her last four years. If it was to make this story zing, in our opinion she might have been better to stick to the familiar terrain of her previous tales and save us much of the torture. We don't want Carlotta turned into V.I. Warshawski - we'll read about her if we want frenetic action from start to finish. Rather, we expected a bit more shrewd street work from Carlyle, a little more humor, a little more running around with her usual friends. So - our fond friend is back, but perhaps not in the best of form. The fan club won't skip it, but to the uninitiated, hardly the best Carlyle episode.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Carlotta Digs Up All the Dirt!, June 25, 2003

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Big Dig: A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery (Hardcover)

Carlotta Carlyle is one of my very favorite detective characters. Everything about her is intensely real, from her six-foot height to the red hair atop her head. No way she's going to blend in. Life is difficult for her, and she finds herself scrounging to make ends meet. Driving a cab to moonlight is one choice, and doing multiple full-time detective jobs is another. You've got to love this hard-working woman.

As someone who has been living through the Big Dig project in Boston for many years, I was thrilled when Ms. Linda Barnes decided to build a story around it. All we could see during the construction was a big mess that moved daily, disrupting all traffic and making it impossible to know how to go anywhere.

Mention Boston and public works, and the idea of corruption may cross your mind too. After all, Mayor Curley served Bean town from a jail cell during his administration. So when Carlotta is hired to look into Big Dig corruption, I had the story all set in my mind. Carlotta would find the corruption and it would lead right back to the Commonwealth's most well-heeled and established citizens. Wrong!

There's a lot of humor in this story as Carlotta tries to look inconspicuous, yet find out what's going on at the work site. Someone has called in a tip that things are rotten in Denmark. She hasn't found out much by the time that a mysterious death occurs.

At the same time, she takes on an unusual missing person's case. A young dog handler has gone astray, while leaving her dog behind. It doesn't make much sense . . . and Carlotta cannot turn up many leads.

So for most of the story, you see Carlotta having problems rather than being a Superhero Wonder Woman detective. I find that refreshing.

Then, late in the book, the plot develops at a breakneck pace . . . and I couldn't read the remaining pages fast enough to find out what was going on. I was particularly pleased to see that the solution to the mystery themed into another Boston tradition, celebrating Patriot's Day.

Weaving all of the threads together is done masterfully. Even if you usually only like to read about male private detectives solving crimes, you should try this book. I'm sure you'll like it!

After you finish enjoying Big Dig (which is slowly drawing to an end now that the tunnels are open for traffic), I suggest that take a copy with you the next time you are in Boston and imagine the scenes taking place while the main construction was going on. It would make for a great Halloween night!