Snapshot [Hardcover]

Linda Barnes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1993

After receiving several snapshots of a newborn baby in the mail, private eye Carlotta Carlyle is drawn into a mystery involving the unnecessary death of the little girl in the photos. 40,000 first printing. $40,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the ever-increasing crowd of admirable female PIs, Boston-based Carlotta Carlyle is a stand-out and not just for her red hair and 61 frame. Self-possessed and confident, she's also short-tempered, restless and skeptical. On a referral from a neighboring psychiatrist, Carlotta is hired by Emily Woodrow, a distraught surburbanite whose seven-year-old daughter has recently died of leukemia at a local hospital. Emily suspects her daughter's death may not have been inevitable, but she disappears before sending Carlotta some promised evidence. At the same time, 11-year-old Paolina, Carlotta's Colombian "sister" in the Big Sisters Organization, begins to hang around with a thug in his mid-20s. Following a twisted trail, accompanied by an abundance of quirky, recognizable characters, Carlotta takes on the hospital's smugly authoritarian medical staff, uncovering a decidedly un-Hippocratic scheme, and tries to prevent Paolina from leaving the country to search for her drug-baron father. Barnes ( Coyote ; Steel Guitar ) adroitly connects the two plot lines in a nifty final turn. BOMC featured alternate; QPB selection; author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-Every Friday for five weeks, Carlotta Carlyle receives an identical blue envelope containing a different photograph of the same child. On the sixth Friday, she is hired by Emily Woodrow, the child's mother, to investigate Rebecca's death. By the seventh week, Emily has disappeared. Carlotta's investigation, including sufficient telling detail to allow readers a sense of participating in the events, moves briskly through the medical world of a research hospital to a satisfying resolution. Teens are offered a pleasant escape from their daily lives as they accompany Carlotta in her fifth mystery.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: The Delacorte Press; 1st edition (May 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385306121
• ISBN-13: 978-0385306126
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,289,311 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

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Carlotta Turns Serious, October 23, 2002

By 

Wendy Kaplan (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Snapshot (Mass Market Paperback)

In the fifth of Linda Barnes' very enjoyable Carlotta Carlyle series, the main character comes into her own as a PI. Although she still has a wry sense of humor, a self-deprecating streak, and daily contact with a cast of outrageous characters, this story is a serious one.

Carlotta is approached by a distraught woman, Emily, who is accompanied on the visit by her young and handsome psychiatrist. It seems that Emily's young daughter, who was being treated for a curable form of leukemia, suddenly took a violent turn for the worse and died. Emily is certain that it was due to gross negligence on the part of the hospital, one of the most prestigious in Boston. Her psychiatrist does not agree, but wishes to soothe his patient by letting her hire Anna.

Anna finds the case daunting and more than a little confusing, especially when her first forays into information-gathering result in the death or disappearance of several key players, including Emily herself. Is Anna in over her head? What exactly DID happen to Emily's 6-year-old daughter? Is there a conspiracy of silence at the hospital, and if so, which of the pompous, well-known doctors is taking part? As Anna digs deeper, she finds herself involved in a dangerous web of intrigue that threatens not only the patients in the hospital, but her own life as well.

Although this story has much more meat than the previous books in the series, it is not without its own special brand of humor and quirky characters. Carlotta's insanely nutty roommate, Roz, is her usual outrageous self, as is Diane, the impossibly huge proprietess of the Green and White cab company. Carlotta is still involved with Sam, the offspring of a well-known mobster, and no-nonsense cop Mooney, her friend, mentor, and would-be lover, still disapproves. There are also some plot-thickening incidents with Carlotta's beloved "little sister" Paolina, and her immoveable mother Marta, who has become very ill.

All in all, this book promises a new twist in the series, and bodes well for the future of Carlotta's career as an offbeat, but successful, private eye.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Barnes does it again, June 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Snapshot (Mass Market Paperback)

If you're a fan of Linda Barnes and her Carlotta Carlyle protagonist you will enjoy Snapshot the fifth installment in this series. I listened to the audio of this book and have to admit that reading would have been much better. I feel the audio is to easy to get distracted from. However, I love C. J. Critt and feel she does a wonderful job. Snapshot takes you into the world of hospitals and medicine and secrets they may hold. Carlotta is taken into this world by her customer who later cannot be found. Snapshot has many twist and turns (which I enjoy in a novel). Several people who could be the bad guy, and our old favorites Mooney, Gloria and Sam make appearances. Although they are not involved as much as in the previous novels. Snapshot will not let you down if you are looking for a good whodunit with a great protagonist.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars nicely twisty mystery, December 8, 2008

By 

D. K. Stokes - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Snapshot (Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Mysterious photographs lead to a grieving mother who may or may not have seen something suspicious when her daughter died.

Add in medical intrigue, problems with P.I. Carlotta's Little Sister, seemingly unrelated murders, and, weirdly, the theft of her full trash cans, and the result is a mystery full of twists and turns and surprises.

One quibble I had is that all the men in the book seem to find Carlotta irresistible. Irritating.