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Book Review of Hardware (Carlotta Carlyle, Bk 6)

Hardware (Carlotta Carlyle, Bk 6)
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#6 Carlotta Carlyle mystery. Winter's approaching in Boston, and someone is beating up cab drivers. Carlotta, who drives cab part time to help pay the bills when her PI business doesn't do well enough (which is most of the time) is approached by two different people to investigate--an official in the local Hackneys association, and her boss and friend Gloria, who is part owner of G&W cabs. Gloria isn't sure whether someone is targeting just her small company or cab drivers in general, and can't quite figure out what they would stand to gain by intimidating drivers. Is it something personal or something to do with the politics of the cab medallions--the license issued by the city to own and run a cab, of which there are a fixed number.

Meanwhile, Carlotta's on-again, off-again lover Sam Gianelli, son of a mob boss though not involved in mob business himself, has been spending a lot of time away from Boston in recent weeks and Carlotta's wondering why. Sam owns the other half of G&W, and would prefer that she not investigate at all, which also puzzles her. He also insists that she needs to get into the computer age and introduces her to an old friend who gets her set up with a state of the art system for next to nothing. Once again, Carlotta's puzzled as to the motivation for this move.

I've come to really enjoy this series a lot and this one was quite enjoyable with an ending I didn't expect and more plot twists than I could count. Very much looking forward to the next in the series.