With Intent to Kill

Lieutenant Luis Mendoza #22

by Dell Shannon

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...

Genres: Mystery

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

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

[R.E. Conary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dell Shannon, Ed McBain, Donald E. Westlake, Erle Stanley Gardner, Rex Stout. These were my mother's writers along with hundreds of others. She was a book-a-day reader, mostly mysteries and westerns; these weren't for me then, who was more into Tolkien or Heinlein or Leiber, but she tempted me early on with Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys.

So here it is, decades later, and I'm just discovering Lt. Luis Mendoza and the detectives of LAPD Homicide. These are workaday heroes, the guys who show up every day, slog it out, doing the monotonous legwork on a dozen crimes of death, or attempted death, at a time. It's constantly two steps forward and one back, and, often, the other way round. But the work gets done because they put in the time, and though they'd never say it to your face, they care. And when they can, there are brief vignettes into their lives and families: reading Grimm, Aztec and Gaelic myths to their kids, taking pictures of a new baby, trying to adopt, talking the job--or not--with the wife.

It's all mixed together and sucks you in. The thing is it never changes. Today's detectives may have more technology, but it still comes down to workaday heroes doing the legwork, because some things can't be found in the lab or on the computer.

Fans of Law & Order, Cold Case, Without a Trace, and CSI would find themselves well served to discover Luis Mendoza et al.

So what have I learned in all this time? What every daughter or son should come to realize eventually, mother knew best.

[Diane K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one opens the way you would expect a police novel to open--a phone ringing in the dead of night. However, Mendoza, staggering out to the hall, does not find a new body on his hands, It's a frantic George Higgins, reporting that his baby has chosen to come six weeks early.

Mendoza, arriving a little late the next morning (after driving Mrs. MacTaggart across town and back again) meets up with Hackett, who presents him with a nifty turn of phrase that will pretty much describe 99% of their cases, past, present and future: "Stupidity and cupidity". They do see a lot of it on their beat.

Computers are coming more and more into use at the LAPD. The newest innovation is the NCIC--the National Crime Information Center. This is a big help when they have a cycle man shot in the street in the process of presenting a traffic ticket. The description of the car and its attached trailer is fed in; sometime later they will get word from back East that the vehicles belonged to a farmer and his wife, apparently shot to death by drifters whom they had hired on a temporary basis.

They find a case practically on their back doorstep--one of the poorest sections of town. A young woman stripped and tossed into the back yard of an empty house. Oddly, the clothing is found just a short distance away. Mendoza displays his expertise on the subject of women by identifying the ensemble as moderately priced but of good quality and taste. Unusually for Mendoza, he feels a little something for this woman. Most victims are a puzzle to be solved, but he rather resents the wanton violence done to this young woman, with her quiet, modest attire (skirt coming below the knee--Mendoza has no use for mini-skirts!) It takes some time for the body to be identified, and longer yet to track her family--she, of course, had no need to write down addresses and numbers that she had memorized, and the people she now lived and worked around had no knowledge of her past. Most victims, as Mendoza has pointed out previously, do a little this and that to bring the violence on themselves, but the motive for this one is so appallingly outrageous--based on a wholly unwarranted assumption--that everyone is infuriated by it.

To add a brief flurry of excitement, there's a sniper, fanatical about his private property, going after a blameless telephone lineman. The sniper turns out to be one William Pratt. (I found myself wondering if Shannon was conciously or unconciously thinking of Boris Karloff.)

After books and books of swearing to get that siren installed before he's a week older, the siren suddenly appears in Mendoza's car, without fanfare.

To add to the general interest, Mendoza finds that Alfred Carmichael's wife has died in a bathtub accident. Alfred, some ten years previously, had "accidently" shot his own father, thinking him a burglar, and thus getting half interest in the family candy business. Four years after that, his brother had somehow managed to throw himself down some steps, while Alfred was safely alibied at home. This newest "accident" is not on Central's beat, but Mendoza informs the local cops. They investigate, and are quite certain of how he did it, but they can't prove it. All they can try to do is frighten the man so that he won't try anything ever again--rather a moot point, I thought. He has the family business, he's gotten rid of his not-so-young wife; who else would he need to kill?

A car salesman vanishes from his place of work. The police brush it off-maybe he went home with a headache. It's not until the body is found the next day that more details emerge--he had taken out an expensive Facel-Vega on a test drive with a prospective buyer, and never came back.
We get the finish to this one at the same time that we find that Mendoza has also had a police-band radio installed in his car. Idly listening in on his way home, he suddenly hears that the Facel-Vega has been spotted, and roars into action. (He really should have a light as well--the police cruisers were a little confused to find a Ferrari with a siren competing with them!) This isn't as intense a chase scene as we had in KNAVE OF HEARTS, but it's still pretty exciting.
There is Linda Karpis, a not-so-nice girl gunned down outside a bar. Everyone is certain who did it, but did he?

Plus, there's a trio of hippies (well, that's what they were back then) found beaten to death in their pad. No one is very forthcoming with information, until they come across a young runaway, who discovered that a life of "freedom" wasn't what it was cracked up to be.

Meanwhile, back with George, Margaret Emily has made her appearance, 8 pounds even, with lots of black hair and fingernails. He makes the momentous decision to purchase a camera, an Instamatic. Photography will become one of George's signature characteristics for some time to come.

At the Mendozas', things are going up and down. The twins miss Mairi MacTaggart, and Terry starts whining for her and sounding like a spoiled child. Mendoza deals with this by turning his back on her (silly little girls don't deserve bedtime stories) and settles down to tell Johnny a story of ancient Aztecs, as told by his grandmother when he was "un muchacho muy pequeno." Terry sneaks over to listen. Later, their interest is piqued by a neglected cat from down the street, who emerges from under the garage with a litter of kittens. The twins are fascinated, the Mendoza cats are outraged. They go on a hunger strike (said strike does not include nips of rye for El Senor!) until Alison can persuade the Pet Pride people to collect them, even unweaned. After Mrs. MacTaggart returns, there is a marvelous scene when Alison goes to the library to fetch a book of Gaelic fairy tales, as they all think that the twins should have a grounding in the literature of their native backgrounds. Mendoza, who has no trouble whatsoever with Cihuacoatl and Mictlantecutli, and Quetzalcoatl, is completely flummoxed with Fionn mac Cumnhaill, Cuchulain of Emain Macha, and Conchabar the Ard-Righ. (Conchabar, by the way, is pronounced "Connor" so you can understand his confusion.) He gratefully leaves the telling of Gaelic tales to Mrs. MacTaggart.

There's a couple points that I've been noticing. There's a strong tendency for evidence on cases to turn up right after someone decides the case should be put into Pending. Also, Mrs. MacTaggart seems to be making Mendoza drink whether he wants to or not. Whenever he arrives home, instead of asking IF he wants a drink, she tells him he WILL have one, and goes to fetch it (with El Senor in hot pursuit). Kinda pushy, if you ask me.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read several of these Luis Mendoza police novels in the 80s. Enjoyed them all.

[Michele bookloverforever]

Such sad tales