#5 Carlotta Carlyle PI mystery set in Boston, MA. Each Friday for several weeks, Carlotta receives a photo of a young girl from birth upwards, and then the girl's mother arrives with her psychiatrist to bring her the last one--a photo of young Rebecca Woodrow just before she died. Her grief-stricken mother believes there was some error made in the treatment she was receiving for leukemia that caused Becca's death rather than the disease itself and asks Carlotta to look into it, with a handsome retainer check as an incentive. Meanwhile, Carlotta tries again to see her Little Sister (as in the Big Sister/Little Sister program) Paolina and finds the girl's mother and siblings in a terrible state due to her rheumatoid arthritis and lack of funds. Carlotta hasn't been allowed to see Paolina for nearly four months and Marta tells her she's been hanging out with some guy who's in his 20's. Since the girl is only 11, this gets Carlotta's hackles up and she begins to investigate that too. As she attempts to get inside the specialty hospital where young Becca Woodrow was treated and to keep tabs on Paolina and her 'friend,' Carlotta begins running into opposition on both fronts--and when a young nurse who worked with Rebecca and quit working for the hospital shortly after her death ends up dead herself (suicide? or perhaps not) Carlotta knows she's on to something, but doesn't even have enough information to pass along to her cop friend Mooney. Very interesting book with a rather strange premise, although I figured out the bad guy well in advance and some of the whys and hows--one of the times when it helped to be a nurse. Plenty of fast-paced, seat-of-your-pants action, just enough humor and a good dose of Carlotta's circle of most interesting supporting cast.
What do You think about Snapshot (2005)?
Snapshot - VGBarnes, Linda - 5th in seriesEvery Friday a child's snapshot arrives at the Boston office of P.I. Carlotta Carlyle. There's no note. No return address. Just pictures of the child as a newborn, as a toddler, as a preschooler. Maybe Carlotta should have tossed them all in the trash. Maybe then she wouldn't have gotten mixed up again...in murder.Discovering what happened to the child in the photos draws Carlotta into a shattered picture of private lives sadly out of focus-and big shots mixed up with deadly conspiracy that stretches from a New England hospital to the Third World. And when she finds her own "little sister" from the Boston Big Sisters program in a different kind of danger, the truth jumps out in harsh black and white. In a world filled with killers and innocence, Carlotta Carlyle may be the only avenging angel left....This was a very good read
—LJ
