Case Pending
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Another murder, another unanswered question. And Detective Mendoza hates to leave things undone.
Hers was the kind of casual homicide that occurred every week in a city like Los Angeles in the sixties. Beaten, robbed, and left in an abandoned lot, Elena Ramirez's death was like many others… in fact, nearly identical to a murder that happened six months earlier—a case that Detective Luis Mendoza was never able to solve.
The detective isn't a fan of puzzles but knows one when he sees it. He puts two and two together—these vicious murders must have been committed by the same deranged individual—and leads the charge into a case that is astounding in its complexity. Along with the begrudging help of Detective-Sergeant Hackett, Mendoza must separate the many twisted threads of this crime—from murder to black-market adoption and extortion.
Considered the "queen of the police procedural," Dell Shannon offers a glimpse into the world of police-work before the aid of forensics or technology. An Edgar Award finalist in 1961, Case Pending introduces the Mexican American Detective Mendoza, a dynamic character who will stop at nothing to find answers, working in a Los Angeles that had not forgotten the 1943 "zoot suit" riots targeting young Chicanos.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
First published in 1960, this series launch from Elizabeth Linington (1921 1988) writing as Dell Shannon was an Edgar finalist, but it hasn't aged well. Los Angeles homicide lieutenant Luis Mendoza, one of the first fictional Latino detectives, fears that an unknown murderer has struck again. Six months after someone killed chambermaid Carol Brooks, damaging her left eye, 18-year-old window dresser Elena Ramirez is found dead with a similar wound. Mendoza and his team investigate, starting with Ramirez's family and friends. That the killer's identity is signaled early on limits suspense in a plot driven by following routine police procedures. Leslie Klinger's informative introduction concedes that the author employs racial stereotypes, and Mendoza has groan-worthy attitudes toward women (he wonders whether a witness he's attracted to might possess "that great rarity in a woman, a sense of humor"). This Library of Congress Crime Classics selection is more a curiosity than anything.
