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  • Bibliography:
    85 Books (1 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1960
  • Latest Book:
    November 2014
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Full Series List in Order

A Luis Mendoza Mystery

1 - Case Pending (1960)
2 - Ace of Spades (1960)
3 - Extra Kill (1961)
4 - Knave of Hearts (1962)
5 - Death of a Busybody (1963)
6 - Double Bluff (1963)
7 - Root of All Evil (1964)
8 - Mark of Murder (1964)
9 - The Death-Bringers (1965)
10 - Death By Inches (Oct-1997)
11 - Coffin Corner (1966)
12 - With a Vengence (1966)
13 - Chance to Kill (Sep-1981)
14 - Rain With Violence (1967)
15 - Kill With Kindness (1968)
16 - Schooled to Kill (1969)
17 - Crime on Their Hands (1969)
18 - Unexpected Death (1970)
19 - Whim to Kill (1971)
20 - The Ringer (1971)
21 - Murder with Love (1972)
22 - With Intent to Kill (1972)
23 - No Holiday for Crime (1973)
24 - Spring of Violence (1973)
25 - Crime File (Jul-1974)
26 - Deuces Wild (1975)
27 - Streets of Death (1976)
28 - Appearances of Death (1976)
29 - Cold Trail (Apr-1978)
30 - Felony at Random (Apr-1979)
31 - Felony File (Feb-1980)
32 - Murder Most Strange (Apr-1981)
33 - The Motive on Record (Apr-1982)
34 - Exploit of Death (May-1983)
35 - Destiny of Death (Apr-1984)
36 - Chaos of Crime (Jun-1985)
37 - Blood Count (Oct-1986)
38 - Murder by the Tale (Nov-1987)

Book List in Order: 85 titles



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    The Ace of Spades continues the case histories of Mendoza, the Mexican detective of the Los Angeles Police Department. Lt. Mendoza specializes in homicides … he has brains, uncanny flair, wealth, a passion for justice and Abyssinian cats. He has a ...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    In Lieutenant Luis Mendoza's first case, he is faced with a three-way mystery involving the senseless killing of Elena Ramirez, a blackmailing involving a below-the-radar adoption, and a young man's guilt. And when Mendoza connects Elena's death with...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    Lieutenant Luis Mendoza is tasked with solving a double murder, shrouded in strange rites. Acting on one of his famous hunches, he is drawn into the world behind the glitter of Hollywood and into the Temple of Mystic Truth.There he finds cultists Mar...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesHas an innocent man suffered for another's crime? Is there, lurking in the background a cunning maniac killer, selecting his victims carefully in turn?Lieutenant Luis Mendoza has a hu...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    It all started with the baby shower that friends gave Sergeant Hackett. There, Alice Mendoza, bride of Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, met the insufferable Margaret Chadwick.But the next morning, Miss Chadwick's body was discovered in the Southern Pacific f...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesLieutenant Mendoza seems to be beset on all sides: at home, his wife Alison is convinced she is having twins; at the office his worry is a man called Francis Ingram, prime suspect for...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, Los Angeles Police Department, Homicide, is once again involved in a complex case. A Jane Doe is identified: she's Valerie Ellis, a spoiled rich kid, suddenly left penniless when her parents died. Lieutenant Mendoza, who like...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    MENDOZA WANTS BLOOD... Lt. Luis Mendoza of the Los Angeles Police Department was vacationing in Bermuda with his wife when the call came. His friend, Sgt. Art Hackett, had been forced over the edge of a mountain road in a murderous automobile atta...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    The Death-bringers means tragedy for LAPD Homicide. One of Lieutenant Luis Mendoza's friends is killed while going into a bank. Now Mendoza and his team of detectives are dealing with the loss of a friend and a colleague - and trying to find his mur...






    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    To a man, the members of the LAPD homicide department were yawning with unaccustomed inactivity. Then everything happened at once - a cop killed by a hit-and-run driver; the questionable suicide of a young girl; and the victim (apparently) of a heart...




    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    Lt. Luis Mendoza, the dapper, very rich, and very clever head of the L.A.P.D. (Homicide), had little time to indulge his new-found delight in Kipling. For the rains came, bringing with them a torrent of crime to the Los Angeles area. There was the us...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'There oughta be a law against charity - the selfish kind. But there's not. So when I heard about the nurse who was carrying her contribution too far, what could I do? Still the story made no sense. The thing had me going...' It seemed this babe, ...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesWhen a con-man with many aliases is found shot dead in his car, there is only one clue - a single word that he had scrawled on a memo-pad as he was dying - and the suspects are many.E...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesTwo little girls have been raped and murdered and every available officer in The Los Angeles Police Department is on the case.Lieutenant Mendoza's team meticulously make enquiries - t...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesA beautiful Hollywood blonde inexplicably vanishes from the restaurant she is dining in with her fiancé and is found with her neck broken and miles away from the scene of her disappe...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesOne of Lieutenant Luis Mendoza's most respected colleagues, young detective Tom Landers is under suspicion in a stolen car racket.Internal affairs are investigating but Mendoza is not...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesThings begin to heat up in the Los Angeles Police Department when Lieutenant Luis Mendoza's stolid and good-natured colleague Sergeant Higgins is kidnapped by three dangerous escaped ...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesAn earthquake shakes Southern California and the Los Angeles Police Department. With no air-conditioning and a temperature around 98 degrees the heat is turned up when there's a tripl...






    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesWhen a respectable young woman's naked body is found far from her home, the case proves baffling for Lieutenant Luis Mendoza of the Los Angeles Homicide squad.But Mendoza is strugglin...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesThere's no holiday from crime at the Los Angeles Police Department, not even at Christmas. Among a string of bizarre cases, there's the very mysterious killing of Lila Askell, the you...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesQueer cases run in batches in Los Angeles and Lieutenant Luis Mendoza has a few of them on his books. There's the case of the man who is terrified of vampires and who comes to a viole...



  • 'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles TimesLieutenant Luis Mendoza is beset by two insistent puzzlers: how does his team nail the pair who are staging hold-ups at the best restaurants in town? And who was responsible for the b...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    It was a bloody hot August -- even for Los Angeles. Robbery-Homicide was shorthanded because of vacations, but crime didn’t let up. The usual cases of human violence and venery were on hand: A young girl hurtled to her drug-induced death… A hands...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    Lieutenant Luis Mendoza celebrates his birthday with a more than usually exuberant outburst of murder and mayhem.What has happened to the abducted Nurse Bradley? What fiend could have tied up Lila Wescott and whipped her while she suffocated? And who...



    • / Police Procedural
    • Buy Buy

    The Los Angeles Homicide Department is a revolving door of crime where Lieutenant Luis Mendoza has hardly time to grab a sandwich between the serial muggings of seven senior citizens, the disappearance of a wheelchair-bound man, and the killing of on...



  • The body of a woman from respectable, conservative Glendale is found stashed under a ramshackle house in the middle of the inner city. Detective Luis Mendoza marks the rising heat by the crime and violence raging through the sunbaked streets of Los ...



  • The bizarre, haphazard pattern of big-city crime and violence has never been more vividly portrayed than in this, Dell Shannon's 30th novel. As avid fans of this series have long recognized, no one handles his job with more finesse than Lt. Luis Mend...



  • Lieutenant Luis Mendoza and the LAPD homicide division tackle some of their most shocking cases to date. Half a million dollars is stolen from a fashionable department store; a young divorcée is murdered by her ex-husband's lover; three flawless rob...






  • Aided by his men in the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery and Homicide Division, seasoned veteran Luis Mendoza bravely meets the tough challenge of big-city crime and violence. Working with faint clues, he and his detectives systematically brea...



  • Two men involved in a heist are wanted for double homicide; the body of a young punk is found in an alley; the corpse of a girl lies in the dry riverbed. Everything is, in fact, more or less routine for Lieutenant Luis Mendoza and his colleagues in t...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneAs usual, crime is a boom industry in Los Angeles. A gunman walks into a café and shoots a waitress dead, seemingly at random. A schoolgirl is shot from a passing car. A prostitute trying t...



  • Death is everywhere. A child in a playground. A playboy in a cheap hotel. A John Doe in a freight yard. A nanny and her two charges in a church pew.After twenty-six years in homicide, Lieutenant Luis Mendoza knows death is all in a day's work. But in...



  • September is the worst month for heat in Southern California...and LAPD Lieutenant Luis Mendoza is feeling the burn as the sweltering temperatures raise tempers and violence. Heading the list is the bizarre murder of a young French girl - a search th...



  • A nice young man is helping little old ladies with their groceries . . . then stealing their Social Security; an enormous 'ape man' with a face like King Kong is robbing liquor stores; 'Jack the Stripper' is leaving gas-station registers empty . . . ...



  • It's springtime in Los Angeles, and there's murder in the air .. An early June hot spell takes its toll as it fuels a wave of bloody and bizarre crime for Luis Mendoza of the LAPD. Grisliest by far is the psycho they call the werewolf, who gets hi...



  • It's a gray November for Detective Luis Mendoza, and it's not getting any brighter The weather in L.A. hasn't been living up to its sunny reputation--the murder of an unwanted newborn and the assault of a twelve-year-old girl don't make things pre...



  • Follows the adventures of Con McDonagh, and exiled Irish surgeon in London before the Napoleonic Wars, and his double obsession with his childhood sweetheart, Lauretta, and the charming Madeleine Olivier...



  • This is the perfect short-story collection for Dell Shannon fans, because it gives them eight never before published stories featuring the popular Lieutenant Luis Mendoza of the Los Angeles Police Department as well as six fine nonseries tales. We se...






  • VERY GOOD-BOOK/VERY GOOD-DUST JACKET, STATED 1ST EDITION: 1ST PRINTING as evidenced by print history number line ending in the number 1. Hardcover fiction. Book is NOT SIGNED OR AUTOGRAPHED. Dust jacket is protected by clear archival cover. Dust jack...



  • The Dispossessed is an historical novel set in Ireland in the middle of the 17th century, when Cromwell and his troops destroyed the Gaelic aristocracy and seized their lands. The survivors were given the option of 'To Hell or Connacht.' The plot is ...



  • When American journalist John Harkness is reassigned to his paper's London office, he quickly becomes embroiled in a bizarre tale involving an ancient family curse. While he is out for a weekend drive in the West Country, his car becomes surrounded b...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneIn the quiet suburb of Santa Monica, eighty-eight-year-old Mabel Foster loses her husband to a stroke. Rather than move Mabel into a retirement home, the neighbours hire Josephine Slaney to ...



  • A novel featuring the suave and sophisticated Mexican police detective, Lieutenant Luis Mendoza. It's January in Los Angeles, and the city is experiencing a heatwave. Mendoza's homicide squad is depleted by the murder of one its members, and the crim...



  • At first the murder of Nelson Jamison seemed fairly straightforward. He had been strangled, but next to his corpse lay a hand-printed card with the words The Vengeance is Just. Jamison, a rich ne'er-do-well, has a prison record for rape, and everythi...



  • To the California police the murder of Lilian Blake seems an open-and-shut case. In less than twenty-four hours they have arrested and charged Harry Nielsen, a mentally disabled youth. At first only Harry's mother believes his innocence, insisting he...



  • When Nonie Johnson kidnaps her daughter from the adoptive parents, Jesse Falkenstein is brought in. Something seemed wrong from the start - Nonie just wasn't the maternal type, and then she suddenly vanished from sight.The search for Nonie Johnson yi...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneVic Varallo is an ambitious police officer. He and his wife Laura fix up a room for a guest, Ross Duncan, who seems extremely likeable but a little odd. Ross reveals to Vic that he is flat b...



  • The Glendale Police Department are as busy as usual; crime, unlike the weather, is not seasonal. Detective Delia Riordan has moved into a new apartment with her parrot Harry after her father's death, but her colleagues feel it is time she found a new...






  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneThe Glendale P.D. have their hands full again. What with an epidemic of motel hold-ups, a rapist with a fixation on hospital nurses, a teenager's suicide, an art gallery theft and a killing ...



  • It's Christmas, but there isn't much Christmas spirit in the Glendale Police Department. Delia Riordan's father has just died, Detective Jim Harvey's family have left for the holidays, there are power blackouts, and of course no let-up in murders, mu...



  • The brutal and baffling murder of an elderly couple in their quiet suburban home, the kidnapping of two little girls, a bank hold-up, a jewel robbery from a big store - Vic Varallo and the Glendale police force are kept more than usually busy in this...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneVic Varallo and the Glendale P.D. are startled by the latest addition to their team: a woman detective no less, and a very smart one at that. Delia Riordan soon makes her mark with enthusias...



  • 'This is a mystery readers' mystery novel, and a beauty' Anthony BoucherWalt McLean, the proprietor of Walt's Malt Shop, had been found dead by his niece. The attack did not appear to be motivated by robbery, but who would want to murder such a harml...



  • Four years ago Wayne Burgess killed his parents, and his plea of insanity lead to a verdict of not guilty. Now, after four years in a mental institution, he has been released and is obsessively determined to murder his wife and young daughter.Delia R...



  • Jesse Falkenstein was just putting away his notes at the end of the day when he was visited by Mrs Lester, an acquaintance of his sister, who came to him claiming her husband, Glen, had been seen frequently dining with another woman.Jesse was loath t...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneTwenty years ago the five-year-old Traxler heir was kidnapped from his Hollywood home and never seen again. Now his widowed mother is overjoyed when a plausible young man claims to be her lo...



  • Dick Tredgold has spent seven years in jail for a murder he insists he did not commit. Now eligible for parole, he refuses to apply, because he feels that by doing so he would acknowledge his guilt. His family, at their wit's end, appeal to Jesse Fal...



  • Old Vandeveer is an odd client for the famous Jesse Falkenstein; dressed head to toe in shabby clothes it seems like he can hardly afford Jesse's standard fee to draw up a will. But when he and his wife are murdered a few weeks later, Falkenstein is ...



  • The Manning Company is a big business, but although it was headed by Claire Manning, the founder's widow, before her death, her son John had been running the firm for many years and was the undisputed successor. So why did Claire leave almost everyth...



  • Raymond Austin, a neat, discreet banker, was Jesse Falkenstein's client. Jesse should only have been concerned with Austin's wife, Tamar, because she was being sued for divorce.But then Tamar is found dead, so Jesse has to find out a lot more about h...



  • Someone in Glendale is murdering elderly housewives in their homes. The signs point to a serial killer but could the police be mistaken? In each case, the killer knew the victim's routine; but what possible connection can there be between victims at ...



  • It was strictly a duty call and Pat Carroll wasn't looking forward to it one bit. But she was in Wales and her fiance's family lived nearby. He was dead now, killed in an accident, and Pat felt that since she was so close to his family's home she sho...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneJewel, a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl, has disappeared from her home in a squalid suburb of Los Angeles. A popular young salesman, Steven Wray, is found slumped over the wheel of his car, de...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneThe Wilcox Street precinct is as busy as ever. Sergeant Maddox and his team face three tricky murder cases, with motives that turn out to be as strange and bizarre as the crimes themselves.B...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneSergeant Ivor Maddox of the Wilcox Street precinct has more crime on his hands than even he is accustomed to: murders, con-men, a dismembered corpse, runaway teenagers and a multiple rapist....



  • The neighbours all said ten-year-old Paul Brandon would grow up to be a detective: he was remarkably observant and inquisitive. But Paul doesn't grow up to be a detective; after failing to return one night, his body is found buried under a road excav...



  • The bodies of three young children, abandoned on a bleak hillside, are discovered by Lieutenant O'Connor's Afghan hound, and so begins another long and tough investigation for the Glendale Police Department.Vic Varallo, O'Connor and team are also tas...



  • As always, Jesse Falkenstein and Sergeant Clock have a score of cases on their hands, but Jesse is mainly interested in the murder of Margaret Brandon, a trance medium. He was her lawyer and liked her, and someone had gone to great efforts to make he...



  • Sergeant Andrew Clock of Homicide is an honest policeman, but now there's a very grave charge against him: concealing evidence in a murder investigation in return for a bribe. The evidence seems damning, but Clock's friends, including Jesse Falkenste...



  • 'The best American police procedural of the year' Anthony BoucherSergeant Ivor Maddox and the Wilcox Street precinct do not have time to rest on their laurels. Currently there is a curious wave of shoplifting among teenagers, an elderly pensioner has...



  • Robert Kinsolving is healthy, wealthy and forty-one, and has asked Jesse Falkenstein to draw up a will leaving everything to his sister, just in case. However, before signing, Kinsolving is found dead in an apparent suicide. Jesse is far from convinc...



  • Lieutenant Charles O'Connor of the Glendale police bureau is warned by the Feds that Conway, a crook whose brother was shot by O'Connor during a hold-up, has escaped from jail and is probably bent on vengeance.This news could not have come at a worse...



  • Mystery writer Brendan Monroe is tormented by the fear that his flamboyant fictional detective P. I. Roy Barron has come to life. Is the author losing his mind? Or is someone making it seem that way?When Barron is found dead, Sergeant Dan Valentine o...



  • Beautiful Nell Varney was a newcomer to Contera - and to murder.Suddenly she found herself in a strange courtroom faced with seven pairs of hate-ridden, accusing eyes. Seven witnesses had identified her as the murderer who had caused the death of two...



  • With a brief note to her employer, Dorrie Mayo left her job - and another note taped to a neighbour's door claimed she was taking her baby to live with her in-laws on the other side of the U.S. A natural enough thing for a young widow with a fifteen-...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneRonnie and Ruth, a young couple engaged to be married, are shot dead. Someone hated their guts so bad he reloaded and pumped nine shots into their car.Maddox was stymied. Why should anyone k...



  • In the Hollywood Division of the L.A.P.D., chief of detectives Ivor Maddox and his team have their hands full. There are the routine cases, including the TV actress who overdoses on drugs and alcohol. There are the more complex cases, such as armed r...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneCharles O'Connor of the Glendale police and Vic Varallo are having dinner with their wives when they are interrupted by a call informing them of murder. The victim is an old, nearly blind wo...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneHelen is eighteen, respectable, modestly pretty; she disappears. Juanita isn't much older, and a stunner; she picks men up in bars and then robs them at gunpoint. Old Mrs Peller's bungalow h...



  • Ivor Maddox and his men of the Hollywood police department face, as ever, a formidable load of tricky and puzzling cases.An unknown woman walks into a lawyer's office and shoots him dead: who is she and what is her motive? A housewife in a reputable ...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune

    Ireland, 1749. Dennis McDermott, a witty, charming and daring young man with shades of the Scarlet Pimpernel, lives two lives in eighteenth-century Dublin. Fashionable society idol...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneNew York in the days preceding the American Revolution was a dangerous place to be. Just ask sixteen-year-old James Bethune, who seems to be constantly followed by trouble. Offered a job at ...



  • Lawyer Jesse Falkenstein thought his secretary Miss Williams was a remarkably efficient typist, but he felt she had drawbacks as a legal secretary. She had an earnest face, unfashionable tight curls and she irritated him very much. Jesse wished he co...



  • 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald TribuneIn the sixteenth century lived two queens about whom much has been written: Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stuart. However, there are more than just two countries in the British Isles and there is...


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Dell Shannon has published 85 books.

Dell Shannon does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, The Anglophile, was published in November 2014.

The first book by Dell Shannon, Ace of Spades, was published in January 1960.

Yes. Dell Shannon has 1 series.