Carlotta Carlyle, the six-foot red-haired ex-cop turned part-time Boston cabbie and private eye, wants a computer. The mean streets and the information superhighway intersect occasionally, and she needs access. For expertise, she turns to her sometime lover and owner of the Green and White Cab Company where Carlotta works. Sam Gianelli is a connected guy: his family is Mob, but he's straight. That doesn't mean he can't get a good deal on a used PC. The seller, Frank, is very nervous and obsessed with making sure Carlotta will provide a good home for the PC. Then he burgles Carlotta's apartment to make sure the machine is all right. Soon a bomb goes off in the Green and White's building. Sam is severely injured, and another man dies. Somehow Frank is involved, but how? Carlotta's investigation extends back 25 years to Vietnam and the missing son of another Boston crime family. The sixth Carlotta case takes a while to unfold, but the humor and the self-reliance of the heroine make the wait worthwhile. Good plotting and an exciting, unsentimental finish. Wes Lukowsky --This text refers to the hardcover edition. From the Publisher
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 shadovaand of computer technology, where information is cheap, and privacy may be a thing of the past. Part-time cabbie Carlotta is entering the modern age of investigation. With the help of her sometime lover, mafioso, and computer-hobbyist Sam Gianelli, she invests in her first "hardware," a cheap personal computer. And at the urgingof her ex-boss, Boston Police Lt. Mooney, who decries the stopping power of her .38 S&W, she decides to upgrade her arsenal. Both types of hardware come in handy when Carlotta is hired by Gloria, owner of G&W Cab, to investigate the brutal robberies that are causing her cabbies to quit in record numbers, and the violence and unanswered questions escalate. An explosion rocks G&W, killing Gloria's brother and seriously wounding co-owner Sam Gianelli. Is someone out to bankrupt G&W to acquire its invaluable cab medallions? Is the company a pawn in a Mafia vendetta, with Sam, the underboss's son, the target? And who put that tiny microphone near G&W's bathroom? Aided by a mysterious databank expert, Carlotta learns far more than she thought possible about "private" transactions. And she finds herself digging into Sam's past, exposing secrets he's kept hidden for years--secrets that begin to pull them further apart. As the investigation reaches its climax, Carlotta realizes, almost too late, that the mob may be just a fall guy in a very intimate crime."Like the best of the new detectives, V.I. and Kinsey, she is a woman of wit and gravity, compassion and toughness, a heroine worth spending time with."--The New York Time s Book Review
--This text refers to the hardcover edition. PI and cabdriver Carlotta Carlyle finds herself investigating attacks on fellow Boston cabbies at the request of her boss, Gloria. Attacks on Sam Gianelli, her lover and Glloria's partner, and on Green and White Cab lead Carlotta deeper into the mystery. This latest in the Carlyle series retains its complexity of plot and features the stellar efforts of narrator Margaret Whitton, whose fully voiced performance has all the right accents (Boston, Spanish, etc.) This fast-paced, involving production will keep the listener entertained throughout. M.A.M. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. About the Author
LINDA BARNES is the author of ten previous Carlotta Carlyle mysteries and winner of the Anthony and American Mystery Awards. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and son.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Ms. Barnes makes a fist and puts some muscle in this strong plot about an extortionist scheme to corner the market in the taxi medallions."
-- The New York Times Book Review on Hardware
"Warning, this is a difficult book to put down!"
-- Kansas Ledger on Hardware
"One of the most sparkling and irresistible heroines ever to grace the pages of a whodunit!"
-- Chicago Sun-Times
" Barnes's knack for crisp, snappy dialogue and devising a mystery that has both timeless and contemporary appeal is a winner."
-- Boston Herald
"More than Grafton and far more than Paretsky - Barnes manages to overcome the too tough tendencies of her detective with salvos of self-deprecating wit..."
-- Booklist
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From the Back Cover
WARNING:
Part time Boston cabbie and PI Carlotta Carlyle has been hired by a rival cab company to investigate a series of attacks targeting Boston area cab drivers. It seems somebody is after their medallions. Then Carlotta discovers hidden microphones in the garage at the taxi company she works for. But when she brings it to the attention of Sam Gianelli, the company's co-owner and Carlotta's off again on again lover, he doesn't want the microphones disturbed. But he won't say why.
TAKE THIS TAXI...
Just when Carlotta thinks things can't get anymore mysterious, she is almost killed in a drive-by shooting when she is picking up her new personal computer, which she bought from Sam's friend. Was it a targeted hit, or a random drive-by? And why has Sam's friend suddenly disappeared?
AT YOUR OWN RISK...
When Carlotta is asked to look deeper into the robberies that are now causing drivers to quit in record numbers, the danger escalates as she stumbles upon a secret that could change her life forever-that is if she can stay alive...
"Barnes can turn a phrase well enough to make even Paretsky and Grafton jealous."
-Houston Chronicle
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Hardware
ONEDrey kenen haltn a sod as tsvey zaynen meysim, my grandmother used to say. Translated from the Yiddish: "Three can keep a secret if two of them are corpses." I'm tempted to print it on my business cards.Every going concern needs a catchy slogan.The catch here is "going concern." I'm a private investigator. If people kept their secrets to themselves, I'd be out of a job.
If I had a secret, the Green & White Cab Company is definitely not the place I'd choose to dump it. Too many shell-like ears, too many clackety-clack tongues. One thing about cabbies, they talk. Especially after working the graveyard shift.It's something about night driving; it revs, wires,gives me a rush. By morning I have tales to tell, of weird traffic and wacko fares.Bars are locked tight at 7 A.M., so I wind up at G&W with the rest of the graveyard jocks, swilling coffee, listening to bad jokes, bitching about meager tips. All of us on a talking-jag high. Maybe a survival high.It's a fact: More cabbies than cops get killed in the line of duty.When I first started driving for G&W, working my way through college, Gloria, dispatcher and co-owner, described her drivers as the Geezers and the Wheezers. To put it bluntly, they were old, the last of the Irish-American career cabbies and proud of it. Held no truck with these new immigrants who could hardly speak the mother tongue, God love 'em.Four Geezers had a poker game going in a dark corner, all the better to cheat you in, my dear."Make any dough?" Fred Fergus called in a quavery tenor. "Glad to take it off ya, darlin'.""You can deal your dirty seconds to somebody else," I said with a grin. Only one of the bunch still cabbed. The others seemed to have taken up residence, smoking and choking, enjoying the clubhouse ambiance.A guy I knew only as Bear, a diminutive soul with an outsize nickname, was giggling and whispering at a pimply youth, outlining obscene curves with both hands. I'd heard his routine before: Sports and tits, sports and tits, sports and tits. Endless variations on a theme.Beneath a bare lightbulb, a skinny, underemployed Ph.D. named Jerome Fleckman was earnestly discussing free-market economics and the Marxist socialdialectic with "Not My Fault" Ralph. Ralph, in tummy-bulging T-shirt and tight pants, had a miles-away expression on his face. Jerry might as well have been chatting with his refrigerator."Looking for Sam?" he asked as soon as he saw me.Green & White's other proprietor, Sam Gianelli, is also my on-again, off-again lover. In many ways he marks a turning point in my life. If he hadn't dumped me to marry "a suitable girl," who knows? I might never have married Cal on the rebound, never have become a cop. I might be a Mafia wife, instead of a divorcée currently sleeping with her first flame, a man as divorced as a Catholic can get, short of annulment.Everybody asks about Sam. It's irritating, near-strangers knowing my love life.I said, "You want to grab Ralph's attention, Jer, ask him how he feels about cab leases."Ralph began whining his signature tune. "Not my fault," he declared."Sweatshops on wheels," Jerry said dismissively. Then he got a panicky look in his eyes. "Sam's not planning to switch to leases, is he?"Anything bad happens at the garage, Sam's behind it. Anything good, it's Saint Gloria.I could see her behind the phone console, waving a meaty, beckoning arm. The dispatch area has few distractions--a rusty desk, a few cast-off plastic chairs, the kind you might find in a welfare office or an unsuccessful dentist's waiting room. A wheelchair-bound three-hundred-pound black woman wearing a scarlet dress stuck out."Relax," I said to Fleckman. "No leases as far as I know.""Don't drive another shift," he counseled. "You're tired. Bosses, man, they suck your blood."I find it hard to regard Gloria as a bloodsucking boss."Glad to see you, babe," she said, waving a Hostess Twinkie under my nose. "Want to eat?"Twinkies don't do it for me. I found a lone doughnut in a wrinkled sack."This spoken for?""Help yourself. Hardly stale."The phones lit up. She murmured, "Stick around."I plunked myself into a chair molded to someone else's contours, rose immediately, and ruefully rubbed my backside. Light filtered through the front window. I walked over and lifted the corner of a broken venetian blind. Its slats were thick with dust.G & W, where I moonlight to afford such luxuries as Fancy Feast cat food and quarterly tax payments, is wedged behind Cambridge Street on an ugly commercial strip in Boston's Allston-Brighton area. Neither Allston nor Brighton is eager to claim it. Understandably so: the exhaust fumes from the nearby Mass. Pike are less than a draw. A huge rug store dominates a nearby corner. There's a food co-op, a cleaning plant, another rug wholesaler, and a restaurant that advertises itself as the pinnacle of casual dining, which means they keep a squadron of large-screen TVs blaring all hours of the day and night."Green and White," Gloria sang over the line. "Where are you now, and where do you wanna go?"She has one of the world's great voices, a deep Gospel-touched melody that speaks to my Motown roots.I consider G & W an endearing eyesore, a semi-remodeled warehouse resembling a vandalized Taco Bell. Gloria insists the stucco started out white, but turned grit-gray so quickly there was no point swimming against the tide. Busted wooden garage doors--no excuse from Gloria, just a fact of life--add to the general air of dilapidation."You think I'm losing weight?" Gloria, off the phone, smoothed the red tent over her massive contours. "You seen Sam lately?""No," I said, "and no. In that order."Gloria sighed. "Diet place my brothers signed me up for this time does packaged meals. Frozen gunk-in-a-box. Supposed to be healthy.""Huh?" I said, gazing out the window, wondering if the glass was frosted or filthy.Gloria ordered a Green & White to 700 Comm. Ave. "Careful 'bout those B.U. kids racing across the street," she admonished the driver. "Dummies run smack into traffic.""I'm talking diet here," she said to me, sticking the handset back in the cradle. "Healthy food."Gloria's brothers are concerned about her weight. Someone ought to be.Gloria works full-time and three quarters. She lives in the back room. A hard worker before the auto accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down at nineteen, a hard worker she remains.She used her insurance settlement to buy into SamGianelli's latest failing business venture. Together they form an unlikely team--African American and Italian, street-raised and Mafia bred--and run one of the few successful small cab companies in town. Dispatching is Gloria's vocation, but by preference and inclination she is an information trader, and what she doesn't know about city politics and the cab scene in particular is not worth knowing. Sam handles the money side. He rarely hangs out at the garage.Gloria doesn't miss the company; she substitutes food. Bags of Chee tos, boxes of Mallomars. Cold Pop-Tarts. Nothing remotely nutritious crosses her lips. Junk food is her chosen comfort and solace."You mentioned Sam," I said, dropping the blind back into place. "Do you know where he is?""Nope," Gloria said cagily."You eat the diet stuff?" I asked. On her desk, within gobbling distance, an enormous jar of Bacon Bits dwarfed a box of double-cream-filled Oreos and a can of ready-made Betty Crocker chocolate frosting. As I watched, spellbound, she dipped an unresisting Oreo into the frosting, coating it liberally."Can hardly choke it down," she said, admiring her creation before engulfing it in a single bite."You eat it--and only it--you ought to lose something," I ventured."I'm losing patience is what. Eating cardboard lasagna's bad enough, but I won't listen to another 'motivational' tape, and if I have to go to one more crappy seminar, I'm gonna call the Better Business Bureau, close 'em the hell down. These folks have probablykilled half a dozen people. You should taste what they call tuna casserole. Bean sprouts in it.""You don't follow the diet, you don't listen to the tapes, you don't go to the seminars, why are your brothers doing this?""Makes 'em feel useful."Another Oreo smeared with Betty Crocker's best went down the hatch."I bring Tootsie Rolls to class, chew 'em in front of the other fat folks. Counselor's gonna toss me out, give the boys their money back."You'd have to be a first-class fool to quibble over a refund with Gloria's three enormous brothers.She motioned me closer, lowered her voice to a whisper. "Lee Cochran called an hour before you drove in."It took me a moment to place the name. "Head of the Small Taxi Association.""Seemed real eager to talk to you, asked me if you were any good.""And you told him ... ?""That I wasn't your secretary, thank you very much. He's planning to drop by in half an hour, if you're interested. You want to make tracks, feel free.""I'm interested," I said."You can use my room." Gloria repeated the cookie maneuver, her fingers plump as sausages. "For privacy.""Thanks," I said.Lee Cochran ... As I inhaled chocolate fumes, I pondered. I'd never warmed to Lee. He wouldn't pay me a special visit to collect dues for the organizationhe'd run as a personal fiefdom for years. A job, perchance. The morning seemed suddenly brighter. I'd rather poke my nose into other people's business than battle Boston traffic any d... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
![Hardware (The Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries) by [Linda Barnes]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51F13h5-zxL._SY346_.jpg)
