A Trouble of Fools — Linda Barnes

It's the kind of case that has "NO!" written all over it. But Carlotta Carlyle--Boston's six-foot-one, redheaded, wisecracking, taxi-driving ex-cop--has a P.I. license getting moldy from disuse, so she takes on the search for a little old lady's missing brother. After all, how much trouble could an aging cabbie get into?

Plenty, Carlotta learns, as she uncovers a scam of laundered money and drug running, all mixed together in that dangerously powerful brew known as Boston-Irish politics...