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Barbara Seranella is the nationally best-selling author of crime novels featuring Munch Mancini, a woman mechanic with a past. Seranella was born in Santa Monica, California and grew up in Pacific Palisades. After a restless childhood that included running away from home at 14, joining a hippie commune in the Haight, and riding with outlaw motorcycle clubs, she decided to settle down and do something normal so she became an auto mechanic. She worked at an Arco station in Sherman Oaks for five years and then a Texaco station in Brentwood for another twelve. At the Texaco station, she rose to the rank of service manager and then married her boss. Figuring she had taken her automotive career as far as it was going to carry her, she retired in 1993 to pursue the writing life. Her official website is www.barbaraseranella.com.
Unpaid Dues
The battered body of her former pal New York Jane has washed up in a Los Angeles drainage canal. Munch's policeman friend Mace St. John runs the dead woman's prints: She's Jane Ferrar, but in her arrest report Mace finds Munch's photo and fingerprints. What's the tie between the two women? Who killed Jane and dumped her in the ditch? And what is the significance of the baby doll tied to her arms? Munch tells Mace that ten years earlier she had used Jane's name to beat a drunk driving rap. She'll do what's necessary now to clear her record, but that's where she wants it to end. She wants no more police digging into her past. It's done. It's over. She's severed all ties with the people she used to know, especially Jane Ferrar and a dangerous man named Thor. Or so she hopes. It's not that easy, though, to escape one's history. There are always reminders, such as the fifteen-year-old boy who shows up at Munch's door one day asking for help. He's the son of an old friend, and he's a kid, so how can she say no? But is he what he says? Is Munch wrong to bring him into the house with little Asia? Munch will do anything to protect Asia from harm. Anything. Meanwhile, Munch's boyfriend, homicide cop Rico Chacón, is investigating a cold case of triple murder that may be heating up and heading straight toward Munch. Her whole new life may unravel unless she can stop a killer. And Munch's life with Rico may unravel too unless his other girlfriend leaves town -- soon.
Barbara Seranella 's Summer Reading List
Heart Seizure
by Bill Fitzhugh
Fitzhugh is brilliant and hilarious. I'll read everything he writes. His newest book revolves around a man whose mother is all set to receive a heart transplant when nefarious government type step in to "appropriate" the organ for the president. The son steals it back and goes on a madcap cross-desert romp to get it installed in the person it was intended for.
Death of a Nationalist
by Rebecca Pawel
Pawel is an awesome new talent. She is only 25 years old and writing about Spain just prior to WWII. Her prose is reminiscent of Martin Cruz Smith and it's difficult to believe that she didn't live in the period she writes about because the details are so vivid.
No. 1 Detective Agency
by Alexander McCall Smith
I've heard so much about this series which takes place in Botswana. I'm going to have to check it out.
Club Dead
by Charlaine Harris
Vampires are mainstreaming. I read the first in this hilarious series of Southern Vampires and enjoyed the humor, characters, and plotting. Can't wait to visit this world again
Dead I May Well Be
by Adrian McKinty
This book won't be out until the fall. I got a sneak peak and loved it. Full of dark, intelligent humor. Our narrator is a young Irishman in New York who takes up a blood fuel against some fellow gangsters. I understand it has already been optioned for a movie. Recommended for readers of Dennis Lehane.
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