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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780312380496
ISBN: 0312380496
Label: St. Martin's Minotaur
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 400
Publication Date: 2008-04-29
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
Product Release Date: 2008-04-29
Studio: St. Martin's Minotaur

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Carlotta continues to evolve
Review: One of PI Carlotta Carlyle's favorite pasttimes is playing volleyball. When her teammate Gwen asks for her help in beefing up the security at an elderly woman's apartment, Carlotta agrees to do what she can. The woman proves to be an interesting character who is full of stories about her wealthy past. Despite Carlotta's best efforts, the old woman dies and the chief suspect turns out to be Gwen. There are lots of twists and turns in the plot and red herrings abound in the form of unscrupulous developers and greedy heirs. In the middle of trying to solve the mystery, Carlotta becomes a surrogate mother to her rebellious Little Sister Paolina, whose mother has decided to run off with a man. Her tenant Roz also contributes to the investigation while she paints art-deco murals all over Carlotta's house and consorts with some interesting men. Carlotta's character continues to grow with each addition to the series, and the plots become more interesting and complex.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Highly Entertaining Mystery
Review: Carlotta Carlyle is a six-foot-tall, red-haired, half Irish-half Jewish, independent private investigator, who is a former Boston cop and she is currently without a client, a steady paycheck or any other visible means of support. She was briefly married a decade earlier and she isn't having much luck with the current crop of men in her life. She goes to the gym regularly, where she plays on a volleyball team, but doesn't know her teammates outside of the gym.

One particular teammate, however, a shy young woman named Gwen, asks Carlotta to have coffee with her. It turns out she's a home care volunteer and she's worried about an old woman, named Valentine Phipps, she has been taking care of in a seedy apartment building.

Valentine says someone has been trying to get into her apartment. Carlotta doesn't take her fears too seriously, but agrees to help burglar-proof her home. However Valentine dies, seemingly from natural causes, before she has a chance to install new locks. However her death is suspicious, because she appears to have been reaching for pills.

Carlotta learns that Valentine was the last tenant still under rent control and she starts to get suspicious. Then it looks like Gwen is being accused of the crime, she's black with priors, after all. So now Carlotta is on the job.

I found this book to be highly entertaining. I especially liked the way Ms. Barnes played all the multicultural characters off against each other, it really helped this interesting and exciting mystery come to life.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: One of Barnes' Best
Review: I am so glad that I read this book without first reading the negative reviews!

As a devotee of the Carlotta Caryle series, I consider "Flashpoint" to be one of the very best so far. As I mentioned in reviews of Barnes' earlier works in the series, she has attained maturity and depth, both in her characters and her plots, and it all comes together in this book.

As those who follow the series know, PI and part-time cab driver Carlotta is a volleyball fanatic as well, playing at the local Y whenever she can. So when one of her team members, a woman she knows only from the games and casually at that, asks for her professional help, Carlotta accepts. In no time, she is drawn into the cruel murder of Gwen's nursing charge: a seemingly harmless elderly woman. Carlotta being Carlotta, she cannot let the murder go, even though her police pals, notably her mentor Mooney, are on the case. And what she discovers leads into a labyrinth of the art world, the music industry and more.

Tied in with this interesting plot is the ongoing story of Paolina, Carlotta's Little Sister. For those reviewers who cannot understand Paolinia in her present highly obnoxious condition, I say go to the mall and take a look at the typical 14-year-old girl! Not the best age in any circumstances for the average female, and certainly not for one whose mother has suddenly abandoned her completely. Is she a rotten brat throughout the book? YES! Will Carlotta be able to get her through this phase and see her to adulthood? That's every mother's question and fear--and I found it completely believable. What was not so believable was the transformation of the mother, Marta, from a very sick woman disabled by arthritis to a sexy vamp on the prowl for men. This transformation was explained in a sentence or two, and sat badly with me throughout the rest of the book. But it did not ruin the story.

There is very little of the wonderful Gloria in this book, and not enough Mooney or Sam Gianelli (all regulars throughout the series), but there is more than enough of Roz, the impossibly erotic free spirit who inhabits Carlotta's rental roooms.

All in all, a simply great addition to the series. Don't believe everything you read in the negative reviews--try it for yourself! I think you'll be glad you did.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Takes a Nosedive
Review: I thought this was an okay installment of the series, until I started getting to the end and it all unraveled.

I had trouble keeping up with what was going on and why various things were happening. The story just didn't seem to flow smoothly at all. And I didn't see the purpose of the sub-plot with Paolina and Marta.

On that subject, it's time to dump Paolina. At first she was an okay distraction, playing on something that the author is obviously fond of (Big Sisters). Now she's turned into a surly, smart-mouthed brat who seems to have no respect for Carlotta and all she's done for her over the years. Why Carlotta didn't belt her across the mouth a few times, I couldn't understand. On the same subject, Roz is also getting old after being an interesting distraction. I don't think the author could make her any freakier in upcoming books, and she's lost some of the spark she used to add to the books. Her attitude is also getting annoying -- she's Carlotta's tenant, and if Carlotta doesn't want murals of Big Macs on her walls or picked-up-in-a-bar one-night stands staying in her house, I find it annoying to have Roz mouthing off to her, telling her it's her life and none of Carlotta's business.

I hope Ms. Barnes gets back on track, because Carlotta is one of the few female PIs out there that I actually enjoy.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Another Gem In Carlotta's Collection
Review: First of all let me say this: How anyone could possibly give this book, or any other Carlotta Carlyle mystery a bad review is so entirely beyond me. I think these people must be aliens from a distant and uncultured, illiterate planet, where they read the trash of such authors as William Faulkner that are supposed to be out-of-this-world brilliance. I think not.
This Carlotta Carlyle is not, in any way, bad or under-written. Barnes consistenly slams us with an enormously entertaining Carlotta novel. And "Flashpoint" is no exception that literarily-gifted rule.
Whenever I mention Linda Barnes to my friends or family, bringing up her mysteries in a conversation with my best friend's mother, I refer to her as my "beloved" Linda Barnes, same as authors like Joan Hess (only in reference to her Claire Malloy books since I loathe Arly Hanks), Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich, and Mary Higgins Clark.
"Flashpoint" is no way a bad novel. Read this book, and all other Carlyle mysteries by Barnes. I believe that "The Snake Tattoo" was the first in this series.

~Steven Harvey

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