Random Death

Vic Varallo Mystery #11

by Dell Shannon, Lesley Egan

As usual, crime is a boom industry in Los Angeles. A gunman walks into a cafe and shoots a waitress dead, seemingly at random. A schoolgirl is shot from a passing car. A prostitute trying to escape her job is killed by her pimp. Then there's the kidnapped daughter, the shot father and the strangled nurse who scrawls a clue to her assailant's identity. The Glendale Police Department is being kept very busy with these cases and more off-beat conundrums, including a series of burglaries in which nothing is stolen and a string of break-ins that could only have been committed by midgets or contortionists.

Genres: Mystery

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Pseudonym of Elizabeth Linington.

Barbara "Elizabeth" Linington (March 11, 1921 – April 5, 1988) was an American novelist. She was awarded runner-up scrolls for best first mystery novel from the Mystery Writers of America for her 1960 novel, Case Pending, which introduced her most popular series character, LAPD Homicide Lieutenant Luis Mendoza. Her 1961 book, Nightmare, and her 1962 novel, Knave of Hearts, another entry in the Mendoza series, were both nominated for Edgars in the Best Novel category. Regarded as the "Queen of the Procedurals," she was one of the first women to write police procedurals — a male-dominated genre of police-story writing.

Besides crime, Linington also took interest in archaeology, the occult, gemstones, antique weapons and languages. Linington was also a conservative political activist who was an active member of the John Birch Society

Reviews

[Betsy Dozier · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s really hard to reconcile the later books of the Vic Varallo series with Linington’s Mendoza series. By the time Delia Riordon is introduced in the VV series, Linington seems to have given up on fleshing out her characters. When Delia’s home life is initially introduced we are told about her elderly father, Alex, having a a couple of days before retirement. Then the author jumps right in telling about meeting Steve who lost a leg and they’ve all been together for so many years. Steve can push Delia’s father’s wheelchair even with only one leg and her father, Alex, can still cook. That’s all she says, but she cuts and pastes this exact same paragraph in each succeeding book.

[George · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow moving more police procedural than mystery story. Story follows police in a couple of departments of the Glendale, CA police department as they deal with on going crimes. In this case, the murders, etc. appear at first glance to be purely random events, but as the story progresses and cases solved, they are not as random as first appeared.

The story deals with day-to-day efforts by police to solve cases focusing on the repeatative routines they go through in dealing with a case. To humanize the story more, your see more personal sides of three of the offices in their daily lives.

[Pam]

07/09/08 purchase from library booksale room