Death of a Busybody — Dell Shannon

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 freight yards, neatly strangled and minus a single clue. That was when Mendoza was called in . . .

'A Luis Mendoza story means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times