Barnes, Linda: Deep Pockets

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Harvard professor Wilson Chaney is being blackmailed over his indiscretions with a precocious undergraduate, Denali Brinkman, a star rower who killed herself in Harvard's boathouse shortly after their affair ended. With his already failing marriage and, more importantly, his position at the University on the line, Chaney turns for help to Carlotta Carlyle, a private investigator and part-time cabby and the protagonist of nine previous mysteries by Linda Barnes. Carlotta, a likeable enough character, calls on a variety of friends--boyfriends and cabbies and web-savvy tenants--for help in identifying and stopping the blackmailer. It is a simple enough assignment, but as it happens, blackmail is only the most obvious element of a more complex latticework of crimes.

The mystery of Deep Pockets is reasonably satisfying, but the book as a whole never fully engaged me. That is, I never cared very much about any of the characters--Wilson Chaney in particular was never more than two-dimensional--nor was I ever made to sit on the edge of my seat while the plot advanced. Barnes' writing is transparent, which is okay, but the prose thus does nothing to raise the book from an okay read to a more memorable reading experience.