Murder Room
80 total works
The weather in LA hasn't been living up to its sunny reputation - the murder of an unwanted newborn and the assault of a twelve-year-old girl don't make things pretty for the family-man cop, especially with a new baby at home.
The most puzzling crime of all is the murder of a respectable middle-aged woman from Indianapolis. A string of hit-and-runs involving a Model A Ford, and a bizarre mugger with a penchant for footwear all add up to another high-voltage month in the city of the stars for Lieutenant Luis Mendoza.
'A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
When a respectable young woman's naked body is found far from her home, the case proves baffling for Lieutenant Luis Mendoza of the Los Angeles Homicide squad.
But Mendoza is struggling with more than the case. He's a man down too. Sergeant Higgins' first baby has arrived and he is far too preoccupied to put his mind to murder. But killers go on killing...
September is the worst month for heat in Southern California, and LAPD lieutenant Luis Mendoza is feeling the burn as the sweltering temperatures raise tempers and violence.
Heading the list is the bizarre murder of a young French girl - which eventually leads Mendoza to Paris. An old man smothered in his hospital bed; a polite holdup artist nicknamed Baby Face; a Hollywood matron who disappears while visiting a sick friend and the grisly murder of a family who has just moved from Wisconsin keep the skilful Mendoza and his force pounding the scorching pavements in a crime wave that, like the heat, offers no sign of relief.
'A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
A beautiful Hollywood blonde inexplicably vanishes from the restaurant she is dining in with her fiance and is found with her neck broken and miles away from the scene of her disappearance.
Who lured her away? How? And, the most puzzling question for Lieutenant Luis Mendoza of Los Angeles' Homicide Squad, is why?
To a man, the members of the LAPD homicide department were yawning with unaccustomed inactivity. Then everything happened at once - a cop killed by a hit-and-run driver; the questionable suicide of a young girl; and the victim (apparently) of a heart attack found in the clutter of her 'second-hand' shop.
It was the last that led Lieutenant Luis Mendoza to the Celtic Hotel, where events moved swiftly and with about as much clarity as the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. But, in this case, the tea party was lethal.
'A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
Lieutenant Luis Mendoza and the LAPD homicide division tackle some of their most shocking cases to date. Half a million dollars is stolen from a fashionable department store; a young divorcee is murdered by her ex-husband's lover; three flawless robberies occur in rapid succession and a middle-aged woman is senselessly murdered in a public park.
The continually erupting crime in Los Angeles stretches the team to the limit. However, Lieutenant Luis Mendoza handles all this action with his own characteristic, inimitable finesse.
'A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times.
The rain brought problems - difficult, ugly, weird problems - for Lieutenant Luis Mendoza. Senseless killings, cold-blooded murders, suicides. To say nothing of a ruthless gang of B-girls whose knockout drops knocked their victims out for good.
And then, on his own doorstep, Mendoza stumbled across a clue to one of the most vicious crimes he had ever been called on to solve.
'A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
It all started with the baby shower that friends gave Sergeant Hackett. There, Alice Mendoza, bride of Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, met the insufferable Margaret Chadwick.
But the next morning, Miss Chadwick's body was discovered in the Southern Pacific freight yards, neatly strangled and minus a single clue. That was when Mendoza was called in . . .
'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
At first the murder of Nelson Jamison seemed fairly straightforward. He had been strangled, but next to his corpse lay a hand-printed card with the words The Vengeance is Just. Jamison, a rich ne'er-do-well, has a prison record for rape, and everything pointed towards a victim's revenge killing.
But within hours Lieutenant Luis Mendoza and his team have an identical killing on their hands, and then a third. But is the killer about slip up and reveal their identity?
'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
Spring fever has hit Luis Mendoza, both on the job and at home. But it hasn't erased the LAPD's endless caseload of bizarre crimes and difficult cases.
'Dapper Dan', the rapist and murderer whose dashing looks and easy charm give him the perfect ploy to trap his pretty victims; a stickup artist who has found a foolproof weapon: a ferocious Doberman; a gruesome double homicide-suicide with a weird twist; a senator's 'natural' death that suddenly doesn't appear so natural - all add up to a month of murder most strange, and Mendoza knows it's time to finally clean house.
'A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
Has an innocent man suffered for another's crime? Is there, lurking in the background a cunning maniac killer, selecting his victims carefully in turn?
Lieutenant Luis Mendoza has a hunch that could lead him to the killer - but not until his beloved wife Alison finds herself caught in the web, headed for disaster, and a grave close to the sea-shore...
'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times
One of Lieutenant Luis Mendoza's most respected colleagues, young detective Tom Landers is under suspicion in a stolen car racket.
Internal affairs are investigating but Mendoza is not going to leave his man to the uncertain processes of departmental routine. Defying orders and protocol, he decides to do some investigating of his own...
To the California police the murder of Lilian Blake seems an open-and-shut case. In less than twenty-four hours they have arrested and charged Harry Nielsen, a mentally disabled youth. At first only Harry's mother believes his innocence, insisting he is too kind-hearted to kill anything. She begs Jesse Falkenstein to accept the case, which he does reluctantly, sure the police have the right man.
But as Jesse starts to dig around, curious scraps of evidence begin to accumulate. He formulates an alternate theory of the crime, and his conclusions expose both Jesse and his wife to a situation of extreme danger . . .
'Her best book' New York Times
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Helen is eighteen, respectable, modestly pretty; she disappears. Juanita isn't much older, and a stunner; she picks men up in bars and then robs them at gunpoint. Old Mrs Peller's bungalow has been broken into and she is found dead - but she had managed to shoot her assailant too.
It's all in a day's work for Detective-Sergeant Ivor Maddox and the rest of the Hollywood police department, who are as richly varied as the cases they investigate.
Dick Tredgold has spent seven years in jail for a murder he insists he did not commit. Now eligible for parole, he refuses to apply, because he feels that by doing so he would acknowledge his guilt. His family, at their wit's end, appeal to Jesse Falkenstein for help.
Falkenstein realises the only way of getting Tredgold to leave prison is to identify the real murderer - no easy task in an eight-year-old investigation. And when Jesse re-examines the case he begins to discover that not all the witnesses were as reliable as they had seemed. . .
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
The neighbours all said ten-year-old Paul Brandon would grow up to be a detective: he was remarkably observant and inquisitive. But Paul doesn't grow up to be a detective; after failing to return one night, his body is found buried under a road excavation site. A tragic, unnecessary accident it seems.
But after the foreman insists that no child could move that amount of earth, Vic Varallo begins to suspect foul play and follows the leads to Paul's reticent playmate Gordon, who may have witnessed something terrible that night.
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Glamorous TV star Jan Warden is found gruesomely murdered in her bed. In her climb to fame, she has made plenty of enemies and the police are not short of suspects. It has fallen to Ivor and Sue Maddox and their LAPD colleagues to solve the murder, which they must do under intense media pressure.
Crime never sleeps in LA though, and alongside this high-profile case they must investigate a rapist attacking solitary women, two girls kidnapped into prostitution and a knife fight at a wedding reception.
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Raymond Austin, a neat, discreet banker, was Jesse Falkenstein's client. Jesse should only have been concerned with Austin's wife, Tamar, because she was being sued for divorce.
But then Tamar is found dead, so Jesse has to find out a lot more about her and her friends: Lee Davenport, the golden haired tenor, Grafton, Eddie, O'Riordan - and a lot of other men, stretching back into her past and around her so recently in her spotlit present. And some women, too.
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
Famous LAPD husband and wife sleuths Sergeant Ivor and Detective Sue Maddox return again, this time juggling half a dozen investigations at once. Balancing solving the cases of an enterprising team of daytime burglars, a scandalous sex ring and suspicious-seeming fatal accidents, they are stretched to the limit when a grandmother and her two-year-old granddaughter are discovered murdered . . .
Four years ago Wayne Burgess killed his parents, and his plea of insanity lead to a verdict of not guilty. Now, after four years in a mental institution, he has been released and is obsessively determined to murder his wife and young daughter.
Delia Riordan, the newest addition to the Glendale Police Department, is on the case. A little girl has been abducted - and she could provide the lead in the Burgess affair if only the police can see the connection in time. But will they?
'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune