The debut novel for LAPD Lt. Luis Mendoza in a series that would eventually have 38 titles. Here is Elizabeth Linington, the "Queen of the Procedurals", writing as Dell Shannon in a novel that was a Finalist 1961 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. The concept now seems somewhat worn, but that is a consequence of her being copied for the last 50+ years. Recommended, at least for historical perspective.Luis Mendoza series - This is a first appearance for Lt. Mendoza whose Mexican heritage is center front in a three way case, the senseless killing of Teresa Ramirez, the blackmailing for a black market adoption, and the oppressive guilt of young Martin Lindstrom. Mendoza connects Teresa's death with that of Carol Brooks' earlier, keeps in mind a lunatic touch, and, with the two other lines, effects a quick finale.
All the hard-boiled reading I've been doing, including the Robert B. Parker trips down memory lane, made me remember a series that my parents loved. It was long running string of police procedurals set in Los Angeles featuring Lieutenant Luis Mendoza.It has to have been unusual for a Hispanic homicide lieutenant to be the main character of these books but it never struck me at the time. I also never realized that Dell Shannon as a nom de plum or that she largely invented the police procedural genre.This is the first in her long running series.
