Munch Mancini Books

Hoping to start over after kicking a heroin addiction, Munch Mancini flees Venice Beach when she becomes a suspect in the shooting death of her abusive father, but she must return for a dangerous showdown in order to move on with her life. Reprint.

If only expert mechanic Munch Mancini could keep her life running as smoothly as the cars she repairs. A former substance abuser, Munch is doing her best each day to keep the sins of her past behind her, but it seems that there's always some old friend or temptation blocking her path. Like her ex-lover, Sleaze Garillo, a shady hustler who comes around looking for a favor. When Sleaze drops out of sight under troubling circumstances--possibly as the victim of a sniper attack on the freeway--Munch can't help but get involved. The cops are after her for answers. But Munch doesn't have any--yet. Unlike the police, she's the only one with the friends and connections to find the truth. Of course that means revisiting the lingering characters from her past--friend and foe--and dealing with them once and for all. She's used to battling drug smugglers, bikers, and the law, but this time, she's facing the hardest fight of her life--protecting the baby daughter Sleaze left behind.

A favor for an old friend embroils ex-con-turned-limo driver Munch Mancini in a search for a serial killer and results in a murder and the disappearance of her limo. By the author of No Offense Intended and No Human Involved. Reprint.

When two of her customers are attacked by a terrifying rapist who uses electricity to torture his victimes, auto mechanic Munch Mancini is on the case, investigating promising leads in this shocking crime spree. Reprint.

Against the odds, Munch Mancini pulled herself out of a dead-end life of drugs and booze, transforming into a high-class mechanic, the owner of a fledgling limo business, and a good mother to her daughter. But she hasn't forgotten her old friend Ellen Summers. Munch and Ellen were young and foolish together. But where Munch went straight, Ellen went to prison. Now, one day before her release, someone murders Ellen's mother and stepfather -- and the killer is convinced Ellen has something he wants. Alone and frightened, she runs to Munch for help. Though Ellen's story doesn't add up, the danger proves to be most definitely real. Unwilling to trust the police for fear of sending Ellen back to prison, Munch embarks on a mission to find the killer and get her friend out of trouble one last time -- before trouble comes looking for her. With riveting action and one of the most unconventional and appealing heroines in all of crime fiction, Barbara Seranella delivers her best novel yet.

Miranda "Munch" Mancini, a single mom and mechanic, seeks out a vicious killer dredging up her past after her fingerprints and picture turn up in a murdered woman's arrest file, along with a current cold murder case headed up by her detective lover Rico Chacon, as she must lure the murderer out or face the consequences of a past that she cannot seem to shed. Reprint.

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. 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.

One thing about Miranda Mancini that has never changed is the name everyone knows her by---Munch. But the child abused by her father and sent into prostitution, the young girl who stole money because she couldn't do without her drugs, the woman who spent awful months in prison---that person no longer exists. Instead, Munch Mancini is the surrogate "mother" of a friend's loving little girl, a woman who can top any male car mechanic's talents with a tool, and the unbelievably happy fiancée of police detective Enrique "Rico" Chacón. It's an ordinary life and it's exactly what she wants. Everything changes when an early-morning call from homicide detective Mace St. John, the nearest thing Munch has to a father, brings unbelievably terrible news. Rico is dead, having been shot during a drug bust. Munch learns that Rico was shot by one of his fellow officers---and not by accident. This news energizes Munch in a way she wouldn't have believed possible. She knows in her head and her heart that Rico could not have been on the wrong side of the drug bust. The police department insists that Rico was working with the drug dealers. But a pair of special officers with Narcotics have other ideas. They ask Munch to go undercover and mix with the suspected dealers. They are certain it will prove that Rico was innocent. Munch agrees. She could easily end up dead herself---but if she can clear Rico's name, she will have what she wants. That's Munch Mancini.