“This had been, in all probability, a deliberately planned murder; and contrary to all the fiction, a big-city homicide bureau didn’t run into that sort of thing very often.” — Luis Mendoza’s thoughts


Coming just before Mark of Murder, Root of All Evil is Elizabeth Linington (Dell Shannon/Lesley Egan/Anne Blaisdell) at her crime-writing best; which is to say better than just about anyone before or since. This one is very complex, as a couple of cases take on lives of their own expanding and eventually intertwining. John Palliser has a larger role in this one, his smart hunches and lateral thinking paying off big dividends for Mendoza and Hackett. Commies, a burglar/rapist, a young murdered girl, and a six year old murder will eventually come to a head in Arizona, across the border, as Mendoza tries to figure out how prostitution, blackmail, and a Commie spy named Thronwald brought about the death of young blonde and pretty Valerie Ellis, whose body was dumped on a parochial school playground. Even how her drugged body got there is a mystery for much of this book.

Meanwhile, Hackett and Palliser are desperately searching for a rapist/burglar the papers are calling Lover Boy. All they know is he’s a big black man with a pockmarked face. Because there was much racial tension at the time — this one is from 1964 — Hackett is trying not to stir up more trouble in Los Angeles’s black community than the Muslim factions within same community are already stirring. But he has a job to do, and he intends to do it. The Commie angle comes to light fairly early in the Valerie Ellis case Mendoza is working, as does her hooking. When Valerie’s notebook comes to light, and the Feds become involved, Mendoza is more surprised that the cool and seemingly uninterested-in-sex rich girl Valerie Ellis was hooking, than he is at her falling in with Commies. Mendoza’s unspoken thoughts:

“Because, look at it from that angle — Valerie, spoiled, used to having money, and only nineteen — a lot of mixed-up kids that age got caught up by the ideals of Communism. The impossible ideals. Communism, Socialism — two sides of the same coin. Sounding just fine, a wonderful idea — only the catch was, neither remotely workable until human nature got entirely changed around.”

There is blackmail, false leads, a bottle of drugged wine, two lovers of foreign folk music, a phone conversation that has a bearing on both cases, and a murder at first attributed to the rapist/burglar. Intricate and complex, Linington uses both Mendoza and Hackett to comment on society and its relationship to the law, and policemen, who carry out the arduous and difficult task that often goes thankless by those they are protecting. When interviewing a girl Luis is certain knew about a badger game Valerie was running with a pimp, he ruminates, not for the first time in the series, on why he hasn’t quit the force, since he and Alison are secure financially. His thoughts go on for three or four paragraphs, in a sharp and damning indictment of the honest citizenry, who are not only unappreciative of the muck and mire cops have to probe in so that honest citizens can sleep safely at night, but ready with glee when one of them falls victim to it. Just like Mendoza’s insightful musings on Communism and Socialism, and its appeal to the inexperienced and naive youth, his thoughts are as apropos for current times as they were in 1964. Perhaps even more so. Mendoza's thoughts on cops and the honest citizenry they protect become much too lengthy and insightful to quote, but here’s how it concludes in Mendoza’s head:

“For some five seconds Mendoza succumbed to a prevalent disease among police officers and hated the honest citizenry with a beautiful savagery.”

As Mendoza learns more and more about Valerie Ellis in life, through interviews and evidence, both Mendoza and the reader form a picture of her —

“I’ll tell you no lie, gentlemen, that one was bad medicine. There was a streak in her kind of scared me, you want to know. A wild streak — real wild. Especially when she was lit up a little.” — Eddy Warren, Valerie’s pimp

Mendoza wonders if it was her wildness or her greed that got her killed. Or was it the Commie angle? How wild was the cool young blonde?

“Anything went with Valerie, so long as it brought in the cold cash. — I remember once she was telling me how a guy passed out on her, and she laughed and said all of a sudden she wondered how it’d feel to stick the bread knife in him. That kind of wild…” — Eddy Warren

Nothing here is a spoiler. I could quote pages from this one and you still wouldn’t figure it out, because the cases have so many tendrils, and unexpected connections. One case ends in a way which will offend the delicate sensibilities of some, but it rings true for the time period, and is actually quite sad. Luis’s case turns out to have at its core a story-line which could have been ripped from today’s headlines, yet still comes as a surprise to the reader because of Linington’s deft slight of hand. But there is still that tip, the phone call. How does a six-year old murder play into it all, and what murder? If this fabulous Luis Mendoza mystery had ever been published with an alternate title, it might well have been Blackmail City.

Linington always weaved the domestic life of her cops into the narrative, and there is just as much happening on that front as with the various cases! Alison’s had the twins, and they’re keeping Luis and Alison up at night. Luis wants Alison to get a nanny, but that proves to be no easy chore. One nanny even dares to kick Bast, one of the Mendoza’s four cats. Sheba and Nefertiti don’t see a lot of action in this one, but the half Siamese, half Abyssinian cat El Señor’s encounter with a big stray tom in the neighborhood will finally lead Alison straight to her nanny. And it will be that encounter which gives Luis the final piece of the puzzle he needs to wrap everything up tidily, just as he likes. Except this time, Luis both likes and sympathizes with the person he’s caught, even has respect for what they were doing, and the reasons why.

Just a terrific mystery read, with tons going on. As always Linington blends the domestic life of Luis and Alison brilliantly with the police procedural elements. Linington didn’t just find her own water level, as musician Herb Alpert always talks about, she seemed to be the only one in the water, because no one else was doing it quite like her. You’ll start off thinking this one is slightly dated because of the Iron Curtan angle, but before it’s all over, you’ll find many aspects of the story could easily have been ripped from any newspaper in any big city only yesterday. Just terrific stuff from a great crime/mystery writer. Whether she was writing as Dell Shannon, Lesley Egan, or Anne Blaisdell, Elizabeth Linington was in a class all her own. ( )

I don't tend to like mysteries where the solution is down to coincidence. So a mystery where everything revolves around coincidences was never likely to be my thing but I'll grant that the books makes some clever points about it.

It's well-written, if a little broad in the characterisation (including the most Oirish Scottish character I have ever come across).

Worth a read. ( )