Dell Shannon was one of the pen names used by Elizabeth
Linington to turn out an impressive list of police procedurals between 1960 and
1988. Set in southern California, they documented galloping societal changes
and showcased her own conservative political leanings while portraying a
Homicide team juggling multiple investigations.
Coffin Corner (William Morrow, 1966) is the 11th
book featuring Lt. Luis Mendoza and his group of detectives in which they learn
a suicide isn’t what it appears to be and neither is the heart attack of a thrift
store owner. Officers sent to notify her family that Eliza McCann died in her
store find an eccentric group living in a run-down hotel in an old section of
Los Angeles. An undertaker with no customers, a convicted felon, a confused
lady awaiting the return of her fiancé from World War I, a would-be opera
singer, an astrologer, and similar offbeat individuals have drifted to the
tired old building because of its low cost and lack of judgment from other
residents. Their oddities are no more than a conversational tidbit among the
detectives until the autopsy reveals Eliza was poisoned. Then the question of
just how strange these people really are becomes serious police business.
Linington must have had a good time writing this story, the
characters are entertainingly bizarre and the plot stops just this side of over
the top. It’s hard not to think The
Addams Family television show, which premiered two years before this book
was released, inspired her. Linington sketched breathing characters in a few
words and her plots were inventive. Her meshing of the personal lives of her
detectives with their professional lives was a pleasure to read. I always loved
her books and they were on my must-buy list as long as they were published. I
find though their descriptions of life in southern California in the 1960s and
1970s were just a little too faithful and they didn’t wear well with time. Her
practice of talking about how much everything costs profoundly dates the books
and the casual racism is jarring. And with all of the scandals of the past 25
years, it’s hard to see any police force as unreservedly wonderful as they are
portrayed here. Still, she wrote fine detective stories and Linington was on
top of her game with this one.
Aubrey Hamilton ©2018
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal
IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
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4 comments:
Oh, I loved these mysteries by "Dell Shannon". I picked up whatever I could at the library.
Soon as I say this title I started humming run run runaway... and damned near got kicked out of the library! Have never read a Dell Shannon mystery, but now that I know he's really a she and not a 50's bopper, I shall search for possible ebook versions of her novels. Thanks for setting me straight!
I had forgotten about Dell Shannon! I had never read one of hers but my mother did. I was reading some non-fiction cat book-- maybe it was one of Doreen Tovey's but I'm not sure-- and she mentioned her friend Elizabeth who was a cat fan and wrote mysteries under the name Dell Shannon. I think that was the first time I realized Dell was a woman not a man. I'll have to pick up one or more of hers....
While I can and do hum Runaway, I don't think I ever read any of these.
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