DEEP POCKETS

A blackmailed Harvard professor calls on shamus Carlotta Carlyle (The Big Dig, 2002, etc.) because he thinks his world is falling apart. If only he knew.

Medical/educational researcher Wilson Chaney does know there aren’t many academic jobs that would carry anything like his present funding or his present clout, and he’s not eager to get fired over the torrid letters he wrote Denali Brinkman, a white freshman, during an affair he insists ended even before her suicide in the Harvard boathouse. How to get the blackmailer peddling those letters off his back? Carlotta soon identifies Denali’s boyfriend, ex-con Benjy Dowling, as the perp during an unauthorized visit to his apartment that nets all the letters. Mission accomplished—except it’s all so easy that nobody but Carlotta and Chaney will be surprised when the absent Benjy’s killed by a hit-and-run driver behind the wheel of Chaney’s own car. It’s only then that the case starts to assume its true proportions, as Carlotta gradually teases out the tangle of drug trials, fraud, civil suits, and murder that links Chaney, his wealthy and imperious wife, a porous security firm, and the venerable university. But it’s not until the last act, just when other cases would be winding down, that this one sends out a shower of fresh sparks that make it bold, powerful, and shattering.

No question: Carlotta’s tenth case is her best to date. Edgar nominators, take note.