'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune
The brutal and baffling murder of an elderly couple in their quiet suburban home, the kidnapping of two little girls, a bank hold-up, a jewel robbery from a big store - Vic Varallo and the Glendale police force are kept more than usually busy in this complex and exciting drama.
In her 67 years, California author Elizabeth Linington wrote 82 crime fiction novels, under her own name as well as the aliases Anne Blaisdell, Lesley Egan, Egan O'Neill and Dell Shannon. Her writing evolved from the early radio and stage dramas, via historical narratives, to her most celebrated novels - mysteries. She was nominated for Edgars in 1961, 1962 and 1963 for Case Pending, Nightmare and Knave of Hearts respectively. Her most successful creation, debonair LAPD Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, broke new ground in being one of the first Latino police officers in the procedural genre, and Linington herself was a pioneer in a male-dominated industry, earning the moniker 'Queen of the Procedurals'.