Linda Barnes: Steel Guitar (USA 2015)

From the Publisher:
A Boston PI tries to help a musician friend -- and find a murderer -- in this "gripping" mystery by an Anthony Award-winning author (Publishers Weekly).

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).

She may be Boston's most tenacious private detective, but by night, Carlotta Carlyle is just another cab driver hustling for an honest buck. When blues superstar Dee Willis climbs into her cab, Carlotta isn't starstruck -- she's shocked. The two women were friends in college, right up until the day Dee ran off with Carlotta's husband. Now Dee is back in town to play a sold-out concert and Carlotta is too surprised to introduce herself -- or to wonder why her old pal is asking to be dropped off in one of Boston's roughest neighborhoods.

After saving the blues diva from being ripped to shreds, Carlotta agrees to help her track down an old friend. Soon, a blackmail plot concerning stolen song lyrics is uncovered and a corpse is found in Dee's hotel room. Carlotta will have to work fast to keep her old friend from becoming yet another casualty of the blues.

Steel Guitar is the 4th book in the Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Linda Barnes: Steel Guitar. A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery. Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781504014458 (July, 2015), eBook, 1.16 MB (ca. 256 p.), $7.99.

Linda Barnes: Steel Guitar (USA 2005)

From the Publisher:
They say you meet all kinds when you're driving a hack. That's certainly the case for Boston PI Carlotta Carlyle, who gets an unexpected fare while moonlighting behind the wheel. It's singer Dee Willis, Carlotta's ex-friend and former band mate, who stole Carlotta's man before clawing her way up the charts.

Dee's made the leap from Southie's barrooms to the cover of People magazine, but now she's back in Carlotta's life, bringing with her a load of trouble. She hires Carlotta to track down a mutual friend who's fallen on hard times, but Carlotta soon finds that there's a far more menacing tune being played. Someone is blackmailing Dee, claiming she stole songwriting credits-and the money and fame that came with them. As the spotlight's glare turns as cold as the corpse that turns up in Dee's hotel room, Carlotta's past is about to catch up to her... with a vengeance.

Linda Barnes: Steel Guitar. A Carlotta Carlyle Mystery. St. Martin's Press, ISBN: 0312932642 (May, 2005), 272 p., $6.99.