Rain With Violence

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 usual spate of senseless killing, and cold-blooded murder, and suicide; but what got Luis on a crusade was the alarming rise in what he called the B-girl racket -- that is, the careless measure of drugs in a drink meant only to knock out a victim long enough to rob him, but which in this case knocked him out for good. And then, on his own home ground, so to speak, Mendoza stumbled across a clue to one of the most vicious crimes of the year.