No Holiday for Crime

Following along the lines of my Murder for Christmas post, here's another little something I stumbled across yesterday. Ok, it wasn't strictly stumbling, I was rifling through the $1.00 books stand at Octagon Books (which was voted as one of the top ten second-hand book stores in the world!). But as I have a little tendency to collect Christmas themed books, including crime fiction, I had to pick out No Holiday for Crime by Dell Shannon, well, it would have been rude not to.

Here's the back cover blurb:

Murderers take no holidays, not even Christmas eve, and especially not in Los Angeles. Homicide Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, up to his ears in liquor-store hijackings and bank, home and chainstore robberies, as well as the usual spate of murders, is dealt a singularly baffling case - a young, devout Mormon on her way home is brutally murdered during a one-hour stopover in L.A. Mendoza's a tough cop, but a smooth operator who knows the sleazy L.A. underworld inside out - this holiday killer is not about to get away...

A blast from the past - 1973.

If seasonal malice is your thing you should check out Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise, who has a page devoted to Christmas with a taste of murder with her Suggest a Christmas Title page.

And before you think for a misguided moment that I got out of the book store with only one book - nah. Also picked up Scotland Yard by Sir Harold Scott - Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police 1945-53. Got to love that $1.00 book basket. There were also a heap of Keyhole Crime books, but I resisted those...for now...