Seranella, Barbara Books

Deadman's Switch

Barbara Seranella

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the author of the acclaimed Munch Mancini crime novels comes a new mystery series featuring an appealing and resourceful sleuth.
Charlotte Lyon is a woman who can handle a crisis. She’s turned that talent into a lucrative business in crisis management, in which she supplies excellent, and often unusual, advice to suddenly troubled company heads about how to handle the press, shareholders, and the public. When necessary, she goes beyond the basic job description to discover the cause of the crisis itself, and whether it was an accident or not.
The job she has now is one of the latter. The mysterious derailment of a train has killed both the engineer and a famous movie actress. The disaster gets international attention and Charlotte is brought in to manage the heated situation. But Charlotte has her own demons to contend with---the recent death of her husband and a dangerously narcissistic mother. And the more she investigates, the more danger surrounds her. But no matter the threat, she will get to the bottom of this tragedy, or die trying.
Barbara Seranella, a unique and beloved voice in crime fiction, delivers a crafty puzzle and vivid, unforgettable characters in this first book of an exciting new series.

An Unacceptable Death (Munch Mancini Novels)

Barbara Seranella

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Series remains excellent read 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The time is 1986 - Ronald Reagan is President - Munch Mancini, the series heroine, continues to lead a clean life with her adopted daughter, and steady job as a mechanic. She happily is planning her wedding to Rico, her cop fiance, when she receives word that Rico was killed under questionable circumstances. Munch, seeking to clear Rico's name of any doubt that he was a clean officer, gets caught in a 'sting' with DEA with drug lords. Munch retains her integrity, having learned hard lessons in the past. This book comes to terms with the loss Munch and her daughter Asia feel and the process as the reason for Rico's death is solved. Very moving yet not saccharin. The series has maintained its integrity and is true to reality and characters.

Editorial Review:

The eighth book in this series finds Munch Mancini much removed from her former life of abuse and prostitution. She now works as an automobile mechanic, work she loves and does so well that even her male co-workers acknowledge her skill (if somewhat grudgingly). She has a daughter, a little girl left in her care by a dying friend. And she is about to marry a police officer whom she loves deeply.It all comes crashing down when a friend in the Police Department calls to tell her that her fiancŽ is dead, shot down by his fellow cops in a drug bust gone wrong. Refusing to believe the explanation she is given, Munch goes on a dangerous mission, first for knowledge, and then for revenge.

No Human Involved

Barbara Seranella

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book is well written, has interesting characters, satisfying plot, and all the ingredients of a really good crime/mystery book. Highly recommended.

Munch ain't no munchkin 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Munch Mancini may only be a whisp of a thing size-wise, but she's got it goin' on in the character department. I thoroughly enjoyed Seranella's creations and look forward to getting to know them better with her subsequent novels. Her depiction of Munch's addiction and forays into 12 step recovery are quite accurate with the notable exception of getting step 9 wrong -- amends are to be made despite possible harm to self; a small but surprising mistake given the attention to detail she shows.

As a fan of gallows humor, I appreciated Detective Mace St. John and his dark realism. "The victim arrived at the emergency department DOA ASTW." -- Dead on Arrival and Stayed That Way. But he's not a uni-dimensional toughskin either. Without giving away the end, there's a nice breeze of gee, people can change...even junkies. Good show, and I'm off to start the next in the series.

Editorial Review:

Munch Mancini wants a new life. To make ends meet, she is working as an auto mechanic in Venice, California, and trying to lose old habits. But she has more to kick than a heroin addiction -- she's wanted for murder. As usual, there's no one to turn to for help, so it's up to Munch alone to clean up her act, clear her name, and save her life.

Unwanted Company (Munch Mancini Novels)

Barbara Seranella

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Just when things seem to be going relatively well for recovering addict, ex-prostitute, ex-con, and whiz-bang auto-mechanic-cum-limo-service-magnate Miranda "Munch" Mancini and her 6-year-old adopted daughter, Asia, she encounters a world of good-intentioned hurt from an old druggie friend, Ellen. Fresh out of prison and just 16 days sober, Ellen is determined to get her life back on track. When things on the outside don't go according to plan, she turns to Munch, who does the right thing by offering Ellen a couch to sleep on and a part-time job as a limo driver. Before you can say "That Ellen, she's going to be trouble," that Ellen becomes trouble when she drives Victor, a Romanian diplomat with a taste for the seedier side of Western life, and Raleigh, a misogynistic and unscrupulous CIA agent, to Tijuana. And, naturally, she doesn't tell Munch.

Serial murder, mayhem, and numerous foreign and domestic intrigues follow in Unwanted Company, ex-mechanic Barbara Seranella's fast-paced third novel. Like No Human Involved and No Offense Intended, it features a cast of well-defined if invariably impaired characters, including Munch's refreshingly normal--that is to say, normally troubled without being psychologically tortured--pal Detective Mace St. John and his partner, the self-doubting Detective Cassiletti. Stylish, spare, and finely tuned, Unwanted Company is an early entry in what promises to be a long and happy run for Barbara Seranella (certainly) and Munch Mancini (please). --Michael Hudson

Unfinished Business: A Munch Mancini Crime Novel (Munch Mancini Novels)

Barbara Seranella

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Miranda "Munch" Mancini is quite a woman. She's a recovering drug and alcohol abuser; she's a southern California auto mechanic; she's the sole proprietor of a fledgling limo service; she's a loving mother to her 7-year-old adopted daughter, Asia. Set in the early 1980s, Barbara Seranella's fourth Mancini novel, Unfinished Business, has Munch and her friend, detective Mace St. John, in hot pursuit of a serial rapist-murderer who's killed one of her clients, the socialite Diane Bergman, and raped another, the actress Robin Davies. Worse--for all concerned, including the rapist--the rapist has come close enough to Munch's daughter to pin a note to her coat, and now Munch is getting threatening calls:

The phone rang again. Asia reached for it.

"No," Munch said, with more force than she had intended. Asia jumped back. Munch picked up the receiver, tried to give Asia a comforting smile, and said "Hello?"

"You have a nice house," the strangely distorted voice said. It vibrated, sounding like the voice of that robot in that old television show Lost in Space. The cadence was slow, as if the speaker needed an extra moment to prepare each word. "But you really shouldn't take the same route home every day."

Gritty, creepy in the extreme, and at times positively harrowing, Unfinished Business is a most welcome entry into the Mancini line (No Human Involved, No Offense Intended, Unwanted Company). Seranella's characters are wholly yet finely drawn, their dialogue is true, and the mounting urgency she packs into this novel's pace, particularly down the home stretch, is palpable. --Michael Hudson

Unpaid Dues: A Munch Mancini Crime Novel

Barbara Seranella

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Munch Mancini's past catches up with her in this sixth adventure featuring the reformed bad girl turned garage mechanic and single mother--a series that's gaining fans with every new outing for a good reason--Munch is an authentically original creation with grit, wit, and determination, which often serve her better than her loyalty to old friends. Now one of those friends turns up murdered, and when homicide Detective Mace St. John finds Munch's prints and photo on the corpse's records, a bloody part of her past threatens to blow Munch and her daughter's future away. If that's not enough, the teenage son of another old friend turns up on Munch's doorstep, but of course it's no coincidence. By the time Sernaella ties a boy named Bug, a drug-fueled murder spree the cops have long since closed the books on, and a dead woman in a storm drain together in a fast-placed plot, she's brought another piece of Munch's history into sharper focus, making her hard-fought struggle to turn her life around even more interesting, involving, and inspiring. --Jane Adams

Unwilling Accomplice: A Munch Mancini Crime Novel (Munch Mancini Novels)

Barbara Seranella

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Munch Mancini and little daughter Asia are doing just fine. Munch rejoices in her job as an auto mechanic at the Brentwood Texaco. She and Asia have a house -- not in tony Brentwood -- and a dog, and Munch has been off drugs for years. She plans to stay that way. It's tough, though, when people from her old life resurface.

Such a person is Lisa Slokum, Asia's aunt. Lisa has always meant trouble, and why should now be any different? It seems she has bolted from the Witness Protection Program with her two daughters, fifteen-year-old Charlotte and eleven-year-old Jill, and she needs Munch's help.

Would that it were so simple. Munch will need to call upon Rico Chacón, a fine cop but not-so-fine boyfriend whose commitment to her on the nonprofessional side seems to be wavering. And before Munch can sort out her love life she must try on the role of auntie to Asia's new cousins -- not easy when the teenaged Charlotte goes missing and her mom, Lisa, lands in jail.

Why did Charlotte run away, and where is she now? Is she in danger of becoming one of Hollywood's lost street children? Does she have information about the recent death of school friend Steven Koon? And why was a lock of her hair found stuck to a piece of duct tape in a ransacked storage locker?

Munch must unravel the mystery of young Charlotte's complex life before it's too late to save her. To do that, she needs help from Rico, who's investigating the Koon boy's death. Will their professional alliance rekindle their romance? Should she take him back? Does he want to come back? Can she trust him?

With its pulsating suspense and penetrating look at family relationships and the universal need for love and affirmation, Unwilling Accomplice is the best yet from a versatile author whose passionate voice shines through her fast-moving prose.

No Offense Intended

Barbara Seranella

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Barbara Seranella's Munch Mancini--a 1970s ex-druggie and jailbird wrestling with her self-esteem and her future--was a blast of original air in the first book about her, No Human Involved. The only problem was that there seemed to be no way she could be as interesting or edgy ever again. Happily, it turns out that Seranella, a longtime car mechanic to the rich and famous of Los Angeles, is even better at tinkering with a word processor. No Offense Intended shows us a growing and changing Munch, while avoiding most of the traps that second books of a series can fall into.

It must have been tempting, for example, to have Munch team up again with Lt. Mace St. John, the thorny but eventually very sympathetic cop who helped her in the first book. But that would have diminished both her fragility and inventiveness, giving her someone too solid to lean on. Instead, we find Munch on her own when an ex-lover rolls into Happy Jack's Auto Repair in the San Fernando Valley to ask her to look after his baby daughter. And when that lover is found dead on the San Diego Freeway, mixed up in a biker gang's dangerous arms dealings, Munch does much of the dirty work on her own before linking up with a LAPD homicide detective.

Equally inventive is the natural way Seranella uses Munch's car repair skills to give the character depth and move the story along without making too much of it. Locked up in jail and needing to smoke and make a phone call, Munch persuades a reluctant guard to loosen up by telling her how to fix the ignition on her '67 Camaro Super Sport. The explanation is so wonderfully authoritative that the page (158) should be copied by anyone who owns that car. As for the rest of this moving and exciting book, you'll be passing it around a lot, as well. --Dick Adler

Greatest Hits: Tales of Assasins, Hit Men and Hired Guns

Jeff Abbott, Lee Child, Robert J. Randisi, Barbara Seranella, Kevin Wignall

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Editorial Review:

Loaded with tension, charged with uncertainty, these four taut tales by New York Times bestselling authors bring their unsuspecting or hunted and fearful targets into the deadly sights of a hired killer’s gun. Contents include: "Retrospective" by Kevin Wignall read by Charles Kahlenberg, "Karma Hits Dogma" by Jeff Abbott read by Rex Linn, "The Greatest Trick of All" by Lee Child read by Stefan Rudnicki, "Upon My Soul" by Robert J. Randisi read by Stephen Hoye and "Misdirection" by Barbara Seranella read by Gabrielle de Cuir.

Gabrielle de Cuir is a multiple recipient of AudioFile’s Earphones Award. Stephen Hoye is an award-winning narrator who starred in the British TV series Crossroads and Shelley. Rex Linn is co-star on CSI: Miami. Stefan Rudnicki is an Audie award-winning narrator and Grammy award-winning audio producer.

No Man Standing: A Munch Mancini Crime Novel

Barbara Seranella

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Munch Mancini used to be a biker chick who was handy with a wrench but had a few bad habits like booze, drugs, and bad taste in men. The heroine of Barbara Seranella's lively, engaging series of mysteries, Munch is trying to clean up her new life as a solid citizen and single mother by staying away from the temptations of her old one. But when her closest friend, Ellen, gets out of jail and learns just how badly someone wants the money she took from a man who tried to kill her, Munch can't turn her away. It's not like Munch doesn't have her own problems: she's being stalked by the mother of one of her daughter Asia's playmates, trying to resuscitate her moribund limousine business, and in the middle of moving into the first house she's ever owned. And now she's got a sullen stripper on her bad side, counterfeit money in her kid's toy box, a new lover who's also a cop, and a very strange guy who says he's her friend's father but might also be a killer who's staying one step ahead of every move she makes. This entertaining and well-crafted thriller should earn this highly original writer (Unfinished Business, Unwanted Company) a host of new fans. --Jane Adams