Linda Barnes: Coyote (USA 2015)

From the Publisher:
For the sake of an illegal immigrant, Boston private investigator and part-time taxi driver Carlotta Carlyle gets involved in a serial murder case

Six-foot-tall, redheaded ex-cop and Boston-based private eye Carlotta Carlyle is "the genuine article: a straightforward, funny, thoroughly American mystery heroine" (New York Post).

Carlotta Carlyle has just returned home when a dead woman walks through her door. Manuela Estefan is breathing, walking, and talking -- but according to the newspaper in her hand, she was just found savagely murdered in a marshy park not far from Fenway. The deceased woman was carrying Manuela's ID card, and Manuela now begs Carlotta to get it back. Boston PIs aren't supposed to touch murder cases, but when Carlotta comes back from the kitchen with a glass of water, Manuela has vanished, leaving five crisp hundreds on the table as a silent plea for help.

But this is no ordinary murder case. The woman holding Manuela's ID is only the first victim in what will prove to be a series of slayings carried out by a vicious maniac -- someone who preys on Boston's immigrant community, but who would not be above going after a tall, red-headed private eye.

Coyote is the 3rd book in the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Linda Barnes: Coyote. A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery. Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781504014441 (July, 2015), 1.17 MB (ca. 269 p.), $7.99.

Linda Barnes: Coyote (USA 2005)

From the Publisher:
When a mysterious woman asks Carlotta to help locate her missing immigration card, it looks to be a pretty straightforward assignment. That is, until the lady disappears, and the card turns up in the possession of another woman...who just happens to be dead. Suddenly the case is far too intriguing for Carlotta to drop-and when her investigation indicates that her client was somehow connected to her inner-city "little sister" Paolina, Carlotta's got an even bigger stake in seeing it through. Alongside a handsome immigration agent with some secrets of his own, she follows her leads into the treacherous underground world of illegal aliens and those who mercilessly prey upon them. It's a lawless, dangerous territory: a place where the only thing Carlotta can rely on is her own wits, and where nothing-from innocence to life itself-is sacred....

Linda Barnes: Coyote. A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery. St. Martin's Press, ISBN: 0312932634 (March, 2005), 272 p., $6.99.

Linda Barnes: Coyote (UK 1992)

From the Publisher:
'Shamus Carlotta Carlyle, 6ft, red-headed, part-time Bostonian cabbie, has the compassion and societal angst of Paretsky's Vic Warshawski and the humour of Grafton's Kinsey.' MACEL BERLINS, THE TIMES

COYOTE
Carlotta is about to enter the vicious world of the Illegal aliens. The world of the Coyote, who will smuggle them in and dump them with no papers, who lives by exploiting the desperate and will kill without compunction to protect his racket.

A world where a mass-murderer can operate with terrifying ease.
Then Carlotta finds her adopted "little sister", on whose welfare she keeps a protective eye, has become dangerously involved.

Linda Barnes: Coyote. A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery. Sevenoaks: Coronet 1992, ISBN: 0340562420, 257 p., £4.50.

Linda Barnes: Coyote (USA 1991)

From the Publisher:
WHY CARLOTTA?
Take it from someone who knows: late-night visitors never bring good news. Tonight Carlotta's mysterious client speaks broken English and clutches a newspaper detailing the discovery of a mutilated body in the Boston Fens. The corpse has an immigrant's green card and that card, the client claims, belongs to her. She wants it back. But who is she? Where has she gone? And why do all the leads connect her to Paolina, Carlotta's charming urban "little sister." Paolina won't talk. And suddenly Carlotta is plunged deep inside the desperate world of illegal aliens, the cold-hearted immigration agents who hunt them down, and the deadly "coyotes" who lead even innocent young girls to the slaughter.

Linda Barnes: Coyote. A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery. Dell, ISBN: 0440210895 (September, 1991), 257 p., $4.50.

Linda Barnes: Coyote (USA 1990)

From the Publisher:
Carlotta Carlyle, the six-foot-tall, redheaded, part-time cabdriver Boston Private Eye, has been called "one of the most sparkling and irresistible heroines ever to grace the pages of a whodunit" (Chicago Sun-Times). And Edgar Award-winning author Aaron Elkins has called her creator, Linda Barnes, "one of the five best private-eye writers of the day." Both Carlotta and Linda are at their best in Coyote.

A mysterious woman pays a visit to Carlotta's office, says she needs help finding her missing immigration card, then disappears -- perhaps for good. When another woman is found dead, carrying the very same green card, Carlotta is hot on the case: Who was the woman who came to her Carlotta? Is her office? Why did she choose Carlotta? Is her life now in danger? And. most frightening: the leads seem to indicate that the woman is somehow connected to Paolina, the charming teenager who is Carlotta's urban "lttle sister". But Paolina won't -- or can't -- ltalk.

Soon Carlotta finds herself deep inside the dangerous world of illegal aliens and the deadly "coyotes" who prey on them -- and in the arms of a handsome immigration agent who may be after more than just the facts. But Carlotta can depend only on her street smarts this time; she has plunged into the darkest corner of Boston's underworld -- a place where human life means little. Even the life of an innocent young girl.

Linda Barnes: Coyote. A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery. Delacorte Press, ISBN: 0385300123 (November, 1990), 257 p., $18.95.