Flashpoint

In this stygian chiller, Shamus Award-winning Hightower (Satan's Lambs) introduces hardworking Cincinnati homicide cop Sonora Blair, a single mom of two who is stalked by a female serial killer obsessed with broken dolls and the act of cremating young male victims alive. When Sonora interrogates the dying Mark Daniels, a college student found handcuffed and set afire in his older brother Keaton's car, she is horrified to learn that the perpetrator was a young blonde. It quickly becomes evident that Mark's ritualistic murder was a manifestation of the killer's sexual fixation on Keaton. After the news media reveals Sonora as the officer in charge of the case, the killer--nicknamed ``Flash''--phones the cop; soon a strange love/hate relationship develops between the two. Evidence of Flash's identity leads Sonora down a trail of similar crimes beginning in neighboring rural Kentucky, crossing into West Virginia, then southward to Atlanta. When the cop falls into bed with Keaton, Flash becomes insanely jealous and starts to menace Sonora's kids, then throws caution to the winds to wreak her revenge. Hightower's prose is functional only, but her pacing is brisk, her characters well drawn and credibly flawed and her plotting diabolically intriguing from start to finish. $20,000 ad/promo; Rights: William Morris Agency. (Sept.)