Flashpoint — Linda Barnes

Carlotta Carlyle, Boston's favorite redheaded, wisecracking P.I., is back in a taut mystery that begins with a seemingly innocent tenant-landlord dispute--and quickly escalates to arson, intrigue, and murder.

Carlotta thinks she's simply doing a friend a favor when she agrees to burglarproof an elderly recluse's apartment. But 24 hours later, when the woman turns up dead in her ransacked home, Carlotta finds herself with entertainment moguls and real estate magnates breathing down her neck, as well as a lot of questions: What is a suddenly vacant apartment worth to a greedy developer? What "article of value" was the woman so eager to protect? Why is there such interest in her will? Is there a connection between the lady's death and a long-forgotten robbery?

Carlotta needs to find the answers in a hurry, before an innocent woman is convicted and before the arsonist who set fire to her house strikes again.