In the 90s when I discovered mysteries featuring female private investigators Linda Barnes was one of the first authors I came across. In my mind at the time she was one of the big four authors in that genre along with Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton and Marcia Muller - and they all blew my mind one way or another. Whereas the other three continued to publish new books for me to read I really thought I’d read all of the Carlotta Carlyle mysteries and she hadn’t written any more. But I was digging through my book database a while back and realised that I’d listed nothing after reading The Big Dig in 2003 which was the 9th in the series but there seemed to be twelve books in the series. So I went looking for number 10.

I downloaded the sample as an ebook and the beginning of this was familiar - not just vaguely like I thought with The Light of Day - I had definitely read this opening chapter with a chase through a Harvard bookstore before. Perhaps I’d read the book and not noted it down? But as I went on I realised I definitely hadn’t read any further. So I suspect I’d read the first chapter as one of those sample chapters at the end of the last book. I’ve given up reading those for just this reason, but I obviously read this one before I reached that resolution. It’s good to have evidence to back up my reasoning for not reading them though.

My notes show I didn’t think the last book was great and it was twenty years ago. I worried that this would seem dated now and I’d hate it. Whereas actually it being a little dated was lovely. Cell phones are still something that not everyone has, though the batteries are as terrible as ever. The capitalisation of “Web site” took me back, I’d forgotten that was ever standard. Just a load of little things throughout the book that made me realise how much things have actually changed in twenty years.

And beyond my own nostalgia trip I thought the whole thing was enjoyable on its own merits as well. The plot was pretty decent, there were good characters, and the advancement in the cast of recurring characters that every long running series has was judged pretty well too. I’m definitely going to finish the last two books in this series soon!