Boston Irish with Dreams: A Trouble of Fools by Linda Barnes

Linda Barnes. A Trouble of Fools (1987) The fools are a bunch of Boston Irish cabbies with delusory dreams of reviving the Irish troubles and shoving the Brits out of Ireland. These dreams entangle them in an illicit local enterprise. Carlotta Carlyle, ex-cop and near-indigent P.I., stumbles on the mess when the sister of one of the cabbies asks her to find her missing brother. An FBI sting attempt designed to flush out a drug dealer complicates matters. Carlyle’s private life doesn’t help much, either. Her stint as a cabbie does help, and all’s well that ends well. Almost: the missing brother does turn up, dead at the bottom of the harbour. But we knew something like that would happen.
     A briskly written and plotted entertainment. Carlyle isn’t quite up to the standard of Kinsey Milhone et al, but she plays in the same league. **½