To state the obvious, I "flipped out" for Marshall Karp's Flipping Out, a police procedural that gleefully avoids the over-used CSI-type technical details and concentrates on the joys of a solid plot with fun characters, brisk dialogue, dark cop humor, and a pair of highly likely protagonists.

The "L.A. Flippers" are a group of women who buy houses, fix them up and resell or "flip" them for a considerable profit. Their leader is Nora Banister, a noted author of popular mysteries who, whenever a house is to be sold, publishes a new book and centers the plot at that address. People willingly pay above market prices to own one of "Nora's houses," and all is a success--until someone begins murdering the women and panic sets in.

The husbands of the Flippers, including homicide detectives Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs, are all poker-playing police pals, so solving the murders becomes a personal matter. Lomax and Biggs are torn when they have to interrogate their own buddies, but also know the first rule of any homicide investigation is that the husband is the number one suspect. Was it a real estate deal gone wrong? A maniacal killer? Revenge against the police? Or something else entirely?

Eventually a murderer is identified, but Lomax and Biggs can't accept where the evidence leads. Despite orders not to continue their investigation, they follow their hunches to a very surprising conclusion. This fast-paced, suspenseful, highly-readable and thoroughly delightful mystery is a follow-up to Karp's initial effort The Rabbit Factory, and hopefully the beginning of a long-running series.