There is lots of good news for fans of mystery writer Linda Barnes and her celebrated protagonist, 6-foot-1, redheaded PI Carlotta Carlyle:

		Linda Barnes will be the featured guest at the Second Thursday Book Club dinner meeting tonight at Mystery Lovers Bookshop, 514 Allegheny River Blvd., Oakmont. A talk and book signing are scheduled for 7 p.m. Information: 412 828-4877.

St. Martin's Minotaur has just published the 10th book in the Carlyle series, "Deep Pockets," a topical and complicated case touching on such issues as psychotropics for children and the nation's obesity problem, along with the usual blackmail, break-ins and murder.

The publisher also has begun reissuing all of the Carlyle books.

Barnes sees the series going at least two more novels.

The author spoke about that likelihood in an interview to advance her appearance tonight at a dinner meeting of the Second Thursday Book Club at Mystery Lovers Book Club.

"I always thought there might be nine," Barnes said. "Then at the end of the ninth ["The Big Dig"], Carlotta started to tell me things she never told me before. Now I think there will be 12.

"It's very difficult [to keep a character going], but I think my knowledge of Carlotta has grown, and I couldn't leave her because there were too many things I had introduced and not resolved. I have to resolve her relationship with Paolina [her adopted little sister]. I have to resolve whether she's ever going to hit a 'happy-ever-after' with any of the men in her life, such as Sam.

"In the ninth book, I learned that Carlotta had given away a child when she was very young. I need to know about that. So there are loose ends."

If you're having trouble understanding how the creator cannot know all there is to know about the character she created, think about God and his surprise at the trouble Adam and Eve got themselves into. Some authors write a virtual biography of their characters before they ever commit a word of short story or book to paper. Others just make a broad sketch -- 6 feet 1 inch, red hair, former cop, plays blues guitar, divorced -- and sees where the character takes them. That apparently has been Barnes' approach, and Carlyle has cooperated very nicely.

Don't get the idea that Barnes is haphazard about her art, though. She is very structured and dedicated.

"I am very strict," she said. "At 8 o'clock I am writing, and I try to confront my computer five or six hours a day."

She does her own research, with the aid of friends and relatives with interesting careers or interesting ports of call. She has a brother who is a physician -- handy for medical detail. She has a sister in Bogota, Colombia -- good for color for the next Carlyle book.

"There are cops I can call, a network of people I can check with, and then I will do my own footwork."

It takes Barnes 15 to 18 months to write a novel. Her publishers wish she were a little faster, but after all these years -- she wrote a four-book series with a male protagonist, Michael Spraggue, before Carlyle -- she knows what her limitations are.

Barnes loved writing as a high school student. She won an award from the National Council of Teachers of English Writing when she was 17. She quit after that. "I thought if you could learn it at 17, it wasn't worth pursuing."

And so Barnes, a Detroit native, entered Boston University's School of Fine Arts with the intention of becoming a "great Shakespearean actress."

"I thought there would be a great need for tall Shakespearean actresses -- I'm almost 6 foot," she said. "Imagine my surprise when I found out there wasn't."

She had a fallback teaching degree and got a job teaching drama at two schools in Massachusetts. She didn't know it then, but she was starting down a path that led back to writing.

"I was required by my school to enter a drama festival sponsored by The Boston Globe. The school had a lot of sports trophies, and they wanted another trophy. I decided to write one. I couldn't find a one-acter that involved enough kids, and I had 12 kids who were good actors, so I wrote them a play."

"Wings" won an award. The following year the school made the state finals with another Barnes play, "Prometheus."

Her school district built a new school and left out a theater. She quit teaching and started writing full time. Mysteries were a logical choice.

"I always loved mystery novels -- there's something about a mystery novel that makes sense when nothing else does," Barnes said. "I'm a control freak. I like things to make sense. Another part of me realizes things don't make sense, and the world is a very complex and very disillusioning place.

"Sometimes I think mysteries sort of hold back the tides. They're about being able to solve problems and also to end with a little ambiguity."

Problems and ambiguity are what have kept Barnes' partnership with Carlyle going far longer than most in the mystery genre, and they are written all over the final page of "Deep Pockets."