Barbara Elizabeth Linington (1921-1988) was an astonishingly productive American author who wrote under the names Elizabeth Linington, Anne Blaisdell, Lesley Egan, Egan O’Neill, and Dell Shannon. She initially wrote radio and stage dramas and then turned to historical fiction. She hit her stride when she began writing mysteries in 1960, producing some 75 books in four series between 1960 and 1986, an average of three titles a year. Encyclopedia.com points out that the lead character in each of her crime series is a distinct ethnic minority in the great melting pot of Los Angeles, which gives a sociological perspective to her work. For in-depth analysis, see https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/linington-elizabeth.
All four series were police procedurals set in and around Los Angeles, California, before the procedural form was widely seen in crime fiction. She was one of the earliest female authors to tackle the procedural style, and she came to own it. One of the inaugural titles in the Library of Congress Classic Crime series is Case Pending (Morrow, 1960), Linington’s first mystery and the book that introduced Lieutenant Luis Mendoza of the Los Angeles Homicide Department.
Her books did not age well, partly because Linington’s deeply conservative politics got in the way, but her personal biases show less in some stories than in others. One of those, the 20th in the Luis Mendoza series, is an enduring favorite of mine. In The Ringer (William Morrow, 1971), Detective Tom Landers, a member of Mendoza’s department, is identified by a member of a nation-wide car theft ring as the leader of the gang. Internal Affairs and the FBI take over, arousing Mendoza’s wrath, and a full-blown investigation into Landers ensues.
Despite warnings to remain uninvolved, Mendoza and his men conduct their own search to exonerate their colleague while following up on their open cases. In a parallel thread the LAPD Records clerk Landers had been dating, Phil O’Neill, decided none of the detectives were taking the right approach. She used her vacation time to visit Landers’ family in Fresno, where she asked to see family photographs. Once they established which grandparent Landers resembled, Phil and Landers’ sister began searching for family records to find the cousin that had to be the car theft ring leader.
Genealogical mysteries rank high among my preferred plots. While Phil’s research had a bit more coincidence than is realistic, I can see why Linington had to cut a corner or two for readability. The overall method is definitely professional. Fortunately Orion’s The Murder Room rescued this long out-of-print story and it is now available in ebook. Readers looking for an introduction to Linington’s work can easily start here. Fans of police procedurals and genealogy will want to add this one to their TBR list.
For more genealogical mysteries, see the Torie O’Shea series by Rett MacPherson.