Customer Reviews

Steel Guitar

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4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
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If you can find this book, grab it. Number four in the Carlotta Carlyle mystery series, it offers a great deal of interesting background into Carlotta's life, none of which has been discussed in any depth in the previous three books.

The plot centers around an old friend/enemy, Dee Willis, now a blues/rock superstar. In Boston for a major gig, Dee looks up her old pal Carlotta, not for old times' sake, but to help find a missing mutual friend from long ago, a fine blues guitarist who fell into a life of drugs and booze. There's a serious reason why Dee wants Carlotta to find Davey--but doing so unlocks emotions for Carlotta that she'd rather keep buried. Emotions due to the fact that, way back when she and Dee were in the same band, Dee stole Carlotta's husband, bass guitarist Cal.

Carlotta agrees to find Davey, but in doing so, she has to slog through old business and old feelings--and confront Cal, something she has never been able to do since he left her. A good mystery, a good story, and a real key into Carlotta. I don't know why it's out of print!

Carlotta Carlyle gets a surprise customer in her taxi one night. It's Dee Willis, a famous singer, who used to be Carlotta's best friend until she stole Carlotta's husband from her. Dee now needs Carlotta's help in finding Davey, a mutual friend of theirs. Davey is accusing Dee of stealing songs which he wrote and passing them off as her own. Carlotta's investigation brings her in contact with several old friends, including her ex-husband. As usual, she is conflicted about her love life, which in this book includes three different men. As in her other books, Linda Barnes writes an interesting tale with a good plot and well-defined characters.

I'll make this review short and sweet.

This is another book in the 'Carlotta' series. I found it fast-moving with a likeable female private eye. The novel deals with rock and roll, plagiarism, the blues, blackmail and past secrets. It is juicy and fun.

I recommend for the beach or plane. It's a good page-turner.

I enjoyed this little book a lot, and looked forward to coming back to it after putting it down for a while.

This is the first book I have read by this author. Everything takes place in Boston. That was fun for me, because I lived there for a few years, but I had forgotten the geography.

The "Steel Guitar" is a song, and guitars are like little Gods among this crowd that Carlotta used to belong to, and still does in some ways. Dee Willis is the goddess of the steel guitar, having learned from an old blues man, the Reverend Gary something.

Anyway, all of that was just background for the real mystery: Who is trying to blackmail Dee? Or is she herself in on the scam?

The only part that raised my eyebrows was the night, at midnight, when Carlotta noted that the Red Sox game was held up because of rain, and would be called by 1 if it did not stop. Does this mean if the rain had stopped, the Red Sox would have started the game at midnight?

Well, only a baseball aficionado would care about something like that.

Diximus

I'm not wild about Carlotta's blues hobby -- it seems too forced -- so an entire book centered around it wasn't exactly a page-turner. Karen Kijewski did the "old friend is a big-time musician with a problem" better in the Kat Colorado series.

I also found the mystery, and the culprit, to be vague. It's a good series, but this definitely wasn't one of the better installments.

#4 Carlotta Carlyle mystery set in Boston, MA. Carlotta, a private investigator who drives cab to fill in the monetary gap, picks up a fare she recognizes--Dee Willis, a blues singer/guitarist who has increasingly gained fame and fortune over the years. The same Dee Willis whom Carlotta used to play with in a blues band. The same Dee Willis who stole Carlotta's husband Cal, now ex. Carlotta saves Dee from a bunch of hungry hobos who attack when Dee begins waving money around looking for 'one of their kind.'

When they've escaped and Dee realizes who she is, she hires Carlotta to find an old mutual friend of theirs, another musician named Davey Dunrobie. Against her better judgment, Carlotta agrees, but when Dee's bass player Brenda ends up dead in Dee's bed, she begins to wonder how that event ties into Dee's hiring Carlotta. As angry as she has been with Dee in the past, Carlotta can't imagine her having anything to do with murder. So who did kill Brenda, and what has it got to do with Davey Dunrobie?

Another good entry in the series, and one in which we get a closer look at Carlotta's past and where she's come from.

Admittedly, I am a late comer to the Carlotta series, but this was one of my favorites. This particular plot forced Carlotta to face her past and exposed some uncomfortable feelings - jealousy of Dee. The interaction with her ex was necessary and helped her come to terms with her current feelings. I thought it was a very moving story with a very poignant ending.