Elizabeth Linington

• Born: March 11, 1921
• Birthplace: Aurora, Illinois
• Died: April 5, 1988
• Place of death: Arroyo Grande, California

Type of Plot: Police procedural

Principal Series: Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, 1960-1987; Detective Vic Varallo, 1961-1985; Jesse Falkenstein, 1961-1983; Sergeant Ivor Maddox, 1964-1986

Contribution

Elizabeth Linington’s novels show uniformity in both style and substance. Although police procedurals usually focus on the issue of good versus evil, Linington emphasized this archetypal conflict to such a degree that it becomes the essence of her work. She called the detective story “the morality play of our time.” The police officer is so much a representative of good in her books that the police officers take on a uniformity of attitude and behavior; they are distinguished from one another only by individual mannerisms and physical characteristics. The other distinguishing characteristic of her work is the large number of cases included in each book. In her early police procedurals, the detectives focus on several cases at once. Later, they focus on large numbers of cases at once.

Biography

Elizabeth Linington was born Barbara Elizabeth Linington on March 11, 1921, in Aurora, Illinois, the daughter of Byron G. Linington and Ruth Biggam Linington. When she was a child, her family moved to California, settling in Hollywood. She was graduated from Herbert Hoover High School and received a bachelor of arts degree from Glendale College in 1942. Although she began writing in high school, it was not until 1955 that her first novel, The Proud Man, a historical novel about a sixteenth century Irish prince, was published. She wrote several more historical novels.

In 1960, Linington wrote her first mystery, Case Pending, under the pseudonym Dell Shannon; this novel launched the Lieutenant Luis Mendoza series. In 1961, she wrote Nightmare, a suspense thriller, under the pseudonym Anne Blaisdell. In 1961, writing as Lesley Egan, she published the first novel in the Detective Vic Varallo series, A Case for Appeal. This novel also introduces Jewish lawyer Jesse Falkenstein, who is the protagonist of the fourth Linington series (the only one not a police procedural). The Sergeant Ivor Maddox series began in 1964 with Greenmask!

Linington received several prizes for her writing, including a gold medal for the best fiction by a California writer from the California Commonwealth Club in 1956 for The Long Watch. Her wide range of interests is apparent in her novels. These include the John Birch Society, of which she was a longtime member, parapsychology, archaeology, music, the occult, and languages. Once Linington realized that she was involved in writing many books about police officers, she researched the techniques of the Los Angeles Police Department carefully. It is apparent that the later books are more closely based on actual police procedures than are the early ones.

Linington also wrote historical novels, including her last work published before her death in 1988, The Dispossessed. Oddly, perhaps, she published this and a number of her historical novels under her Dell Shannon pseudonym. Two police procedurals were published posthumously, again under the Dell Shannon name, by Linington’s literary executors. The Manson Curse (1990) and Sorrow to the Grave (1992) were inferior works, but manuscripts unpublished in their author’s lifetime are always objects of intrigue for the dedicated fan. Linington died in Arroyo Grande, California, on April 5, 1988.

Analysis

Elizabeth Linington was a successful author when she turned to mystery fiction in the 1960’s. Within a few years, critics were calling her the “Queen of the Procedurals.” Linington never intended to write a series, let alone four. While writing a suspense novel, Case Pending, under the Dell Shannon pseudonym, she needed a police officer to develop the plot, and thus Lieutenant Luis Rodolfo Vicente Mendoza was born. According to Linington, “he rose up off the page, captured me alive, and dismayingly refused to let me stop writing about him.” Mendoza was Linington’s most important series character.

Linington’s early police novels, written under her own name and as Dell Shannon and Lesley Egan, had not yet developed into the procedural formula. Instead, in the early books in the Mendoza series and to a degree in the Ivor Maddox series and the Vic Varallo series, the protagonists are great detectives who happen to be police officers. In the great detective tradition, an individual acting more or less alone solves the mystery through his analysis of people and visible clues. These detectives include such figures as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Lord Peter Wimsey. It is not necessary to be a police officer to be a great detective; in these novels, the police are often shown to be unintelligent, stubbornly wrong, and an impediment to the solution of the case.

The early books in the Mendoza series are in this tradition; nevertheless, Mendoza, like Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn, happens to be a police officer. Many of the recurring characters who support Mendoza appear in Case Pending, but the emphasis is less on police procedure than on Mendoza’s uncanny hunches and his reading of people. The pattern continues in The Ace of Spades (1961) and Extra Kill (1962). In Extra Kill, Mendoza remarks:

With all the laboratories and the chemical tests and the gadgets we’ve got to help us, . . . like everything else in life it always comes back to individual people. To people’s feelings and what feelings make them do or not do. Quite often the gadgets can give you an idea where to look, but once in a while you’ve got to find out about the people first—then the gadgets can help you prove it.

The early books also lack Linington’s later, characteristic multitude of cases—a major difference between a great detective and a real police officer. The great detective may confront a number of seemingly unrelated cases, but ultimately there will be a connection and usually a common perpetrator. Police officers, however, cope with a number of cases simultaneously, and the true police procedural will, as it develops, have fictional police officers take on more cases. In the early works, there is basically one case—usually two or more seemingly unrelated cases turn out to be related. In Extra Kill, for example, Mendoza discovers that a confidence man and a police officer have been murdered by the same person.

Finally, in her early works, Linington gives more space to character development than in later books. The early novels are traditional, with full character development of police officers, witnesses, suspects, and criminals. With the later increased caseloads, the length of the books remains the same, but the details about both people and cases decline.

In no other mystery subgenre are the supporting characters as important as in the police procedural, which by definition requires that mysteries be investigated and resolved much as are actual cases—with teamwork. Linington establishes her ensemble of supporting players in the early books. Each is given certain easily described physical characteristics and idiosyncrasies—these become an abbreviated description in subsequent works. In the Mendoza series, for example, these include Mendoza’s fastidiousness, detective Art Hackett’s dieting, detective George Higgins’ cautious wooing of a fellow officer’s widow, and detective Tom Landers’s perpetual youthfulness.

The greatest character development is in the Mendoza series. Mendoza is unique in two respects: He is Mexican American, and he is independently wealthy. When he first appeared in print, Mendoza was the only ethnic minority hero in a series of this kind in the United States. Nevertheless, Mendoza’s ethnic background appears only in his use of Spanish words and phrases in conversation. There is no other indication of values, beliefs, or ideas significantly different from those of his Anglo-American associates. The author uses brief interjections and comments in foreign languages to indicate ethnic background: Mairí MacTaggart, Mendoza’s housekeeper-nanny, speaks Gaelic; Vic Varallo, Italian; and César Rodriguez, Spanish.

Mendoza’s wealth makes him even more unusual. Because of his early poverty and his police career, which predates his inheritance, he is saved from being merely a wealthy dilettante. Although he sometimes wonders why he stays with the “thankless job” and occasionally talks about retiring, he continues because he believes that the police are the good guys in the struggle between good and evil.

Under the superficial differences, there is a uniformity of attitude and behavior within each series and from series to series. The good characters in the books—whether police officers, witnesses, or bystanders—share the same conservative political, economic, and social views.

Linington’s books stress family values. Over the course of the various series, many of the recurring characters marry; most become parents. The marriages are uniformly traditional and happy, without arguments or divorce (belying the divorce statistics for real police officers). Families make the police officers vulnerable; in the early books, they have nothing to lose but their lives. Later, they have wives and children, “hostages to fortune.” Family life serves several purposes: It humanizes the police officers, allows them to express themselves freely, provides light relief, and serves as a counterpoint to the evil and violence of the outside world. Linington described the work life of police officers:

Police officers see very little of the good; . . . they are in too many cases dealing with the mud at the bottom of things, the sordid, the stupid, the random violence. . . . There are no fuzzy edges around that job, no gray areas, no vagueness. . . . This is . . . why so many people enjoy reading about it. . . . They turn . . . to a fictional world where there is solid ground underfoot. A world where right and wrong, good and evil, are starkly defined: though it is so much oftener goodness and stupidity.

Often, the characters in Linington’s novels view violence and lawlessness with detachment. At other times, the nature of the crime or the detectives’ personal involvement makes detachment impossible. Some of the most effective books are those in which the action is close to home. In Knave of Hearts (1962), Alison Weir, Mendoza’s estranged girlfriend, is kidnapped by a psychotic rapist-murderer and is rescued by Mendoza and Hackett. In Mark of Murder (1964), Hackett himself is attacked and near death. In The Death-Bringers (1965), Sergeant Albert Dwyer is killed by a bank robber. In Deuces Wild (1975), the Mendoza twins are kidnapped and Mendoza, a self-proclaimed agnostic, returns to the religion of his youth. In other cases, the crime is so heinous as to demand their emotional involvement—especially if it involves child victims or sexual abuse.

Chaos of Crime

The title of the novel Chaos of Crime (1985) describes Linington’s literary premise better than any other. The novel follows the usual formula: One major case encompasses the entire book; two or three smaller, featured cases occupy much of the book; numerous cases appear and are resolved quickly; and other cases are barely mentioned as requiring time and paperwork. This “chaos of crime” contrasts with the normality of the home lives of the detectives.

Linington consistently used simple, economical language that flows naturally from paragraph to paragraph. Descriptions are brief and straightforward. Her development of character and plot is deft and effective in spite of reduction in the space devoted to developing individual plots and characters. Although lacking the gritty realism of Joseph Wambaugh or Ed McBain, Linington’s characters and events catch the reader’s attention and arouse empathy.

Linington effectively takes the reader into the mind of a criminal; this foray into the criminal mind is the leitmotif of Chaos of Crime. For example, the mental processes of a serial killer, nicknamed the werewolf, are described: “All last night the Voice had been talking to him, so he knew it was time for another. Today when he had come to work he had brought his tools, locked away in the little case in the trunk of the car.”

Meanwhile the routine goes on; cases come and go. “Jack the Stripper,” an armed gas-station bandit who takes his victims’ clothing so as to escape unobserved; “Bonnie and Clyde,” teenage liquor store bandits; and the murder of a rookie patrol officer during a routine traffic stop provide secondary plots. The last is resolved quickly because the officer was holding his killer’s driver’s license when he died. A man dies in an argument over a coin-operated dryer. There are witnesses but no evidence, and the investigating detectives are resigned. An elderly couple, long dead, are discovered in their home. Detective Landers wonders why they were not discovered sooner. The older, more experienced Sergeant Hackett replies, “People in a big city, Tom. They don’t notice, or if they do they don’t do anything about it.” A supermarket bandit, surprised at being caught, is told by an amused detective, “Only yourself to blame. . . . You really haven’t got much sense, Bennie.” Stupidity is blamed when an engraved locket from a burglary-homicide leads to the criminal: “Just as well they’re nearly all stupid so we can catch up to them.”

New cases pile up on the unsolved, old ones. The werewolf kills again. A man kills an unfaithful wife. A teenage boy is dead of a drug overdose. A man is held prisoner in his apartment by his brother, an escaped convict. The detectives reluctantly investigate the werewolf’s latest crime. More cases accumulate. Twelve juveniles under the age of fifteen, high on drugs and liquor, watch as one of them kills the mother of the girl having the party, and then continue carousing. A man is arrested for beating his wife after learning that she had a sex-change operation.

Contrasting vividly with this chaos is the normality of the police officers’ home lives. Everyone seems to be having a baby or looking for a new home. The ordinary routines of daily life are the detectives’ relief (and the reader’s) from the chaos of their jobs.

Mendoza’s home life reveals a different aspect of his character. His young twins, Johnny and Terrie, are devastated following their ejection from a pool party because they cannot swim. He refuses their request for a swimming pool (which he can well afford): “No swimming pool. You can just forget about it, niños, and if either of you starts to cry I’ll spank you.” “I’ll bet you wouldn’t really,” his son responds.

At work, stupidity seems more prevalent than evil. A mugger who killed an elderly man is caught wearing the victim’s necktie, embroidered with the names of his grandchildren. The mugger never learned to read. Another elderly victim is killed by her teenage gardener, who wanted money to take his girlfriend to Disneyland.

A distinctive watch left at the scene of the werewolf’s last crime is identified by a jeweler who repaired it. When Mendoza and Hackett go to arrest the werewolf, a bookkeeper for a major insurance company, he goes to pieces. The psychiatrist tells Mendoza, “All his fantasies have two clear threads running through, religion and sex.” Mendoza is not impressed: “Just so he’s not out hunting more women to cut up.”

Like the robbery-homicide detectives, Mendoza is glad to get home, “This had been another grueling week with a good deal of legwork to do.” There are still, however, the twins and the matter of the swimming pool.

Although this is the only one so titled, all Linington’s mystery novels deal with the chaos of crime. The burden of cases often seems as overwhelming to the reader as it must to the detectives, but the relief of the home life mitigates it. Critics may dismiss her books as formula writing, but she makes her readers care about her characters. Readers become so involved in both the professional and home lives of her characters that they keep coming back for more.

Principal Series Characters:

• Luis Mendoza is the head of homicide in the Los Angeles Police Department. In his late thirties and a dapper, cynical bachelor when the series begins, he later marries and has children. A fortune inherited from a miserly grandfather enables him to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle.
• Alison Weir Mendoza is the girlfriend and later the wife of Mendoza. In her early thirties and the operator of a charm school when the series begins, she later pursues a minor career as an artist. She offers Mendoza stability and acts as a sounding board for his ideas.
• Arthur “Art” Hackett , a homicide detective in the Los Angeles Police Department, is Mendoza’s senior sergeant, the practical one who balances Mendoza’s hunches, and his closest friend. Hackett is a large man and looks like a police officer. Initially unmarried, he later marries and has children over the course of the series.
• George Higgins , a homicide detective in the Los Angeles Police Department, is the other senior sergeant in the squad. He does much of the practical investigation and is even larger than Hackett. Originally unmarried, he woos and weds the widow of a fellow police officer.
• Ludovic “Vic” Varallo , a detective in the Glendale, California, Police Department. In the first book, he is a police captain in the fictional town of Contera. When he is thirty-three years old, he quits to become an average rookie in Glendale. He marries as he leaves his original job and later has a family. Because of his past experience, he is extremely knowledgeable.
• Charles O’Connor is a lieutenant of detectives in the Glendale Police Department. In the early books, he is single and rather crusty; marriage to a schoolteacher whom he meets in the course of the series mellows him slightly.
• Jesse Falkenstein is a Jewish lawyer in Los Angeles. In his early thirties when the series begins, he loves music, especially Bach, and frequently quotes the Talmud.
• Nell Varney Falkenstein is first Falkenstein’s client and later his wife. Wrongly convicted of murder, she is saved from execution by new evidence uncovered by Falkenstein and Vic Varallo.
• Ivor G. Maddox is a detective sergeant in Wilcox Avenue Precinct, Hollywood. In his early thirties when the series begins, he ages slowly. Although ordinary in appearance, he is very attractive to women, which puzzles him. He eventually marries police officer Sue Carstairs.
• César Rodriguez , one of Maddox’s colleagues, is dapper, bored, and cynical. He develops an interest in mystery fiction, which he finds more fascinating than the real crime he encounters daily.
• Drogo D’Arcy , another of Maddox’s colleagues, is tall, lanky, excitable, and constantly falling in love. His despised and unusual first name is a closely guarded secret for most of the series.

Bibliography

Axel-Lute, Melanie. Review of Skeletons in the Closet, by Elizabeth Linington. Library Journal 107, no. 15 (September 1, 1982): 1680. This review of a Maddox series novel notes Linington’s contrasting of the intrigue of murder with the humdrum routine of police work.

DeMarr, Mary Jean. “Elizabeth Linington.” In Great Women Mystery Writers, edited by Kathleen Gregory Klein. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. This alphabetically arranged biographical reference includes a valuable essay on Linington and her impact on mystery and detective fiction.

Knight, Stephen. Crime Fiction, 1800-2000: Detection, Death, Diversity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Devotes a chapter to police procedurals, placing Luis Mendoza in the context of Ed McBain-influenced detective fiction.

Landrum, Larry. American Mystery and Detective Novels. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. This thoughtful analysis of mystery fiction has several references to Linington or her pseudonyms that place her in the context of a very male genre.

Nichols, Victoria, and Susan Thompson. “Luis Mendoza, LAPD.” In Silk Stalkings. Berkeley, Calif.: Black Lizard, 1988. This brief essay concentrates on Linington’s best-known detective.