The Snake Tattoo by Linda Barnes (1989, Hardcover)

The Snake Tattoo
by Linda Barnes
Publisher:  St. Martin's Press
Copyright 1989
Book Club Edition

A runaway girl from a wealthy suburb and a fifty-buck hooker shouldn't have much in common.  But Valerie, a fourteen-year-old student at the Emerson, one of Massachusetts' finest private academies, and Janine, a tattooed lady of the night, are missing.  And Carlotta Carlyle, a private investigator and part time cab driver, has been hired to find them both.

Lieutenant Mooney, her old friend and former boss at the Boston Police Department, has first claim on Carlotta's time.  Temporarily on suspension, Mooney needs Janine's testimony to clear his name in an internal police investigation.  In addition to facing a brutality charge, he's contending with a hostile press that's starting to link him to a payoff scandal in the Zone.

While searching the Zone for Janine, Carlotta meets Jerry Toland, an Emerson student who doesn't believe Valerie ran away on her own.  He hires Carlotta to track her down, a task made more difficult by Valerie's parents -- a dithering mother who seems reluctant to talk about her daughter, and a busy stockbroker father who seems to think a teacher at the Emerson might be involved.

The dual search takes Carlotta from the plush lawns of Lincoln, where money is no object, to some of the sleazier streets of Boston, where money is the only object -- and reveals corruption at the heart of each.

Deftly plotted, informed by Barnes' superb knowledge of the cultural byways of Boston's inhabitants, and filled with sharply edged characters who spring off the page, Carlotta's latest adventures confirm this series as a major hit.

Condition:  Used.  Hardcover.  Dust cover.  Pages are tanned from age.  Previous owner's "Library Of" stamp is on the front endpaper.  Dust cover flaps are tanning.  Dust cover shows a bit of edge wear and tear and creasing.  There's a rough spot on the front dust cover.

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