The main character grows on you. She seems to be a really good balance between messy and disorganized and functional and efficient. If she was too one way or the other, I think she would have been a lot less likeable.

The main character owns a cat. And a bird. These are always story enhancements.

The story takes place in Boston in the 1980s. Some of the most amusing elements are when the characters have to use phones! Hey - landlines, PAY PHONES.

The storyline was sufficient - the author actually surprised me with her skill in tying the threads into one cogent and reasonable plot. I also am going to give an extra star of appreciation to the climactic scene wherein a surprise "player" is actually the one to deal with the bad guy. I am impressed because I did not see that coming and it is both fitting and interesting.

I think the author knew when to wrap this story up; it doesn't go on needlessly and it ends when it needs to. ( )

I might have picked this up as it was the first in a series about a female PI, written by a woman. Not a terrible shout. In and out in under 220 pages with some nice detecting and a messy ending. Not sure I'll rush out to read the next in the series, but a nice alternative to Parker's Boston books, even if the writing doesn't have quite the same zing. ( )

In the latter half of the 1980s crime fiction experienced an eruption of tough, bright, resolute and engaging female private detectives, such as Sara Paretsky’s V I Warshwski, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone, and Val McDermid’s Kate Brannigan. One of the finest, though less celebrated than her peers, was the cab-driving and aspiring guitarist, Carlotta Carlyle, created by Linda Barnes.

A Trouble of Fools is the first outing for Carlotta Carlyle. Although already established as a private eye, as the book opens we sense that business is far from brisk for Carlotta. She does, however, soon acquire a case when she is retained by the highly respectable Margaret Devens to find her missing, and rather less respectable brother, Gene. Ms Devens sought out Carlotta because her brother had been a cab driver, employed by Green and White, one of Boston’s many taxi firms. For whom Carlotta herself had worked during night shifts while a student. We learn that Carlotta had subsequently joined the police before leaving to go solo, disaffected equally by the mindless regulation and Neanderthal attitudes that she encountered.

Gene Devens’s disappearance is unexpected because he had, thitherto, been conspicuous solely for his orthodoxy. He had driven his cab, gone for a quick drink with his colleagues once his shift was over, and then gone home. Initially perplexed, Carlotta digs more deeply and gradually uncovers another side to Gene’s life, and that of several of his colleagues at Green and White Cabs, rooted in a difficult and emotive past.

Carlotta is certainly and well-drawn character, and the plot is well constructed, rooted in plausibility. A very enjoyable opening to what I hope is an engaging series. ( )

Audiobook - a good mystery ( )

The first Carlotta Carlyle book, in which we meet all of her glorious red-headed self and the accompanying cast of characters ( )