Mon 22 Sep 2014
Reviewed by Marvin Lachman: DELL SHANNON – Mark of Murder.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[13] Comments
by Marv Lachman
DELL SHANNON – Mark of Murder. William Moorow, hardcover, 1966. Paperback reprints include: Pyramid X1973, 1969; Warner, 1986; Carroll & Graf, 1994.
When she wrote Mark of Murder, Elizabeth Linington was not as political as she was to become, and so it is one of the better books in the Lieutenant Luis Mendoza series, [written] under her Dell Shannon pseudonym, of course.
One of the things I liked about this book is its picture of Mendoza on vacation in Bermuda, totally bored and feeling undressed because he is not wearing a tie. Fortunately for him (and us) there is an emergency, and he is asked to return home. A serial killer, dubbed “the slasher,” is plaguing Los Angeles, and Mendoza is needed on the case.
Because there are not as many separate cases in this book as usual, the reader can get more involved without the diffuse quality of other Liningtons which present a half dozen or more crimes. This book is also noteworthy for one of Linington’s best features, the ability to make her readers care about the victims and survivors.
September 22nd, 2014 at 9:41 pm
Back in the mid to late 1970s, when I was one of the earliest of booksellers to specialize in mail order paperback mysteries, Dell Shannon was one author whose books I could not keep in stock. They always sold out immediately, no matter how high I priced them. (And back then $2.00 was expensive for a used paperback.)
For some reason, she didn’t seem to be as popular under her own name or as Lesley Egan. Perhaps most buyers didn’t know back then that they were all one and the same.
September 22nd, 2014 at 10:09 pm
I couldn’t get enough of the Dell Shannons back in the day even though I knew who was who. My favorite was the one where Mendoza is collecting Kipling. Of course, I haven’t read her in years.
September 23rd, 2014 at 8:17 am
Really liked her books when I started reading her Mendoza series back in the 1960s. The earlier ones hold up somewhat better. I suspect the reason her other series under her real name and Lesley Egan didn’t sell as well, Steve, is because the characters simply were not interesting. I’ve tried many times to read some of them but without Luis Mendoza they were bland. My personal favorite was probably “Coffin Corner” (1966).
September 23rd, 2014 at 12:49 pm
okay, I’ve checked and the one I read in 1967 in which Mendoza collects Kipling (much to the disgust of his companion, Hackett, who can’t see the appeal) is Chance to Kill. My notes on the endpapers indicate that I acquired it Sept 1, 1967, and had read it by Sept. 4. It’s a book club edition so it came from the Dollar Mystery Guild — before the price went up. The wrapper says it’s the 13th in the series.
September 23rd, 2014 at 3:35 pm
It’s been a long time since the Dollar Mystery Guild existed. under that name, that is. A quick search on Google says that their books are now in the $16-17 range — but there is a sale going on: Happy Fall! Members get 2 for $24, 3 for $33, or 4+ for $10 each…
Ten dollars is not a bad price for a mystery hardcover that you can’t wait for until it comes out in paperback.
September 23rd, 2014 at 3:40 pm
I forgot to mention in my last comment that I count 37 Mendoza mysteries published between 1960 and 1986. For quite a few years, there were two of them that came out. Linington died in 1988 at the age of 67.
September 23rd, 2014 at 4:46 pm
Mendoza lost me before the politics settled in, and try as I might, and I did, Shannon/Linnington/Egan just never appealed much to me. I tried early on and then in the late seventies, and could not connect, but I do know they were very popular and ubiquitous as news stands.
September 23rd, 2014 at 5:01 pm
In case anyone wonders, and I don’t know why anyone would, I’m rereading Chance to Kill after 47 years.
September 23rd, 2014 at 5:53 pm
That’s the whole point of this blog. One of them, anyway! I hope you’ll report back, too, Randy.
September 24th, 2014 at 6:08 pm
Steve,
This is an equally good site for books and films to read or see and books and films to avoid like the Ebola Virus.
I always feel a little bad when I really go after something bad because generally this is such an upbeat and positive site — not guilty enough to stop, but still guilty.
September 26th, 2014 at 10:44 am
Before this segment goes onto the next page I need to note that I did reread Chance to Kill. As a police procedural it deals with more than a single murder. To quote the dust jacket blurb: “Two heist men wanted for double homicide…the body of a young punk in an alley…the corpse of a girl in a dry riverbed …in fact, everything more or less routine for Lt. Luis Mendoza and his colleagues in the Los Angeles Police Department.” Then things go really bad because the murdered girl is a policewoman and she is black (of course, in 1967 that meant referring to her as Negro). Interesting characters and situations. So many of them are described as “nice and ordinary”. The quest for another Kipling for his collection comes up from time to time, but seems to serve no purpose except to add a new dimension to Mendoza’s character, along with references to his family when he goes home at the end of the day. His dialogue is sprinkled with Spanish phrases to show he is Latino. He picks up a handful of Kipling titles and quotes from him (the only thing Kipling means to Hackett is the phrase “the white man’s burden”). I found the prices of things in 1967 interesting. Was everything that affordable in 1967? I didn’t think so at the time. The solution is revealed plausibly and points to a character I hadn’t really noticed. Mendoza ends by going home to his family, his wife, the twins, the cats, and there is a Kipling he has yet to read. Someone told him there was a story in it with a message about doing a good job. He might take the day off and read that.
Not much politics here, but there is a hint of how liberal things are getting, but you find that in a lot of popular fiction in 1967. Linington/Shannon was active in the John Birch Society. Someday I’ll have to look at some of the Mendoza titles on my shelves from the later years.
September 26th, 2014 at 2:15 pm
Thanks for posting this, Randy. Your comment is long and meaty enough for me to post as a review in its own right, and I’ve just done so.
March 7th, 2018 at 4:54 pm
I was actually very sad when Ms. Linington/Shannon passed away….I was invested in the characters in this series. Never could get invested in the characters in her other books but I really liked the characters in the Mendoza series!