Random death

Vic Varallo Mystery #11

by Lesley Egan

When she has to deal with vandalism by youth gangs, drug traffic in the high school, a crazed gunman in a local restaurant, and the senseless murder of a young girl, Glendale Detective Delia Riordan isn't sure she can continue to cope.

Genres: Mystery

182 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

A pseudonym used by Elizabeth Linington.

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