Publishers Weekly, April 19, 1993

In the ever-increasing crowd of admirable female PIs, Boston-based Carlotta Carlyle is a stand-out and not just for her red hair and 6'1" frame. Self-possessed and confident, she's also short-tempered, restless and skeptical. On a referral from a neighboring psychiatrist, Carlotta is hired by Emily Woodrow, a distraught suburbanite whose sever-year-old daughter has recently died of leukemia at a local hospital. Emily suspects her daughter's death may not have been inevitable, but she disappears before sending Carlotta some promised evidence. At the same time, 11-year-old Paolina, Carlotta's Colombian "sister" in the Big Sisters Organization, begins to hang around with a thug in his mid-20's. Following a twisted trail, accompanied by an abundance of quirky, recognizable characters, Carlotta takes on the hospital's smugly authoritarian medical staff, uncovering a decidedly un-Hippocratic scheme, and tries to prevent Paolina from leaving the country to search for her drug-baron father. Barnes (Coyote; Steel Guitar) adroitly connects the two plot lines in a nifty final turn. BOMC featured alternate; QPB selection; author tour. (June)

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 1993

A new, multilayered case for Boston-based P.I. Carlotta Carlyle (Steel Guitar, 1991, etc.), this one starting with a series of photographs of a little girl sent to her anonymously. It becomes concrete when rich, quietly distraught Emily Woodrow, the child's mother, hires her to find out more about seven-year-old Rebecca's death, of leukemia, at JHHI Hospital, headed by world-famous Dr. Jerome Muir. Carlotta enlists the help of Keith Donovan, Emily's psychiatrist, as she begins to probe, despite her misgivings about the grief-stricken mother's ability to face reality. She finds, among other things, that Tina Sukhia, Rebecca's nurse, has left the hospital and now has a lucrative but mysterious job. Adding angst is Carlotta's semi-adopted "little sister" Paolina, who has a new, inappropriate friend and a dangerous agenda of her own. Tina's death, apparently murder, and Emily's disappearance pile on the pressure until Carlotta finally connects the tenuous lengths that add up to a murderous scam — reaching into the upper echelons of the medical establishment.

Unhackneyed dialogue, vivid characters, carefully crafted, tension-filled, never predictable plotting and the savviest, most spirited of three-dimensional heroines -Snapshot has them all. Another bull's-eye for Barnes.