I love Del Shannon's Luis Mendoza mysteries. I'm sure I read this one years ago, but it's been so long I'd forgotten most of it. I like how the detectives are always stretched to cover a multitude of cases in every book. It does make it a little confusing sometimes to remember exactly which victim of which crime is being spoken of, but it also makes it more realistic.The main mystery here involves a misidentified corpse of a young girl. Mendoza and his wife had met her only a few days before and knew she was a French visitor to LA, so he is positive she is NOT Ruth Hoffman from Chicago but he must fit a number of pieces together to prove it. I picked this one up at a used bookstore in the Raleigh NC airport at 6:00 a.m.! Buy one, get two free. What a deal.