[en] The theory of inner-shell Coulomb ionization by heavy charged particles, of atomic number small compared to the target atomic number, is developed through the extension of work by Brandt and his coworkers for K shells to L shells. In slow collisions relative to the characteristic times of the inner shell electrons, the quantum-mechanical predictions in the plane-wave Born approximation (PWBA) can exceed experimental cross sections by orders of magnitude. The effects of the perturbation of the atom by and the Coulomb deflection of the particle during collisions are included in the theory. The perturbed atomic states amount to a binding of the inner-shell electrons to the moving particle in slow collisions, and to a polarization of the inner shells by the particle passing at large impact parameters during nonadiabatic collisions. These effects, not contained in the PWBA, are treated in the framework of the perturbed stationary state (PSS) theory for slow collisions and in terms of the harmonic oscillator model of Ashley, Brandt, and Ritchie for stopping powers in fast collisions. The effect of the Coulomb deflection of the particle in the field of the target nucleus on the cross sections is incorporated in the semiclassical approximation of Bang and Hansteen. Except for the lightest target atoms, the contribution of electron capture by the particles to inner-shell ionizations is shown to be negligible. The theory as developed earlier for the K shell, and here for L shells, agrees well with the vast body of experimental data on inner-shell Coulomb ionization by heavy charged particles