Topic: Books - Mystery
This is the 20th Lieutenant Luis Mendoza mystery. The officers of Homicide are now part of Robbery/Homicide and they are learning to cope with new duties and getting to know the members of Robbery that have been transferred over. It's also Christmas and crime really does not have a holiday.
One of the new officers is a woman, Policewoman Wanda Larsen, and they don't know what to do with her. As you can see this was written a while ago, 1973 to be exact. Evidently they never consider that she might go out on a call, though in later books she finally makes them let her go. The other officers are keeping their fingers crossed that they aren't picked in the lottery to babysit the Rose Parade.
A young lady is found on the grounds of the Science Museum. She was on her way home to Utah, for Christmas, from Santa Barbara and no one knows why she wandered off from the Greyhound station during a layover. A rash of low haul burglaries hits one area, but no one knows how the burlar always knows the people will be gone. A cleaning man is found stabbed to death in a building that is closing for the Christmas Break. Trucks full of liquor and high end food are being hijaked.
Detective Jason Grace and his wife finally cut through the paperwork to adopt the baby found during a murder several months before. Luis and Alison try to straighten out the mixture of English and Spanish spoken by their three year old twins, but a try at Celtic stories doesn't help.
Posted by rachela
at 9:05 PM MDT
