No Offense Intended
   Barbara Seranella
  1999 HarperCollinsPublishers
   ISBN: 0060192127


The last thing Munch Mancini needs is a visit from her ex-lover, a shady hustler looking for a favor. Munch is a no-nonsense auto mechanic in the San Fernando Valley. Clean from every addiction known to man & woman, she is doing her best each day to keep the sins of her past behind her. Then her ex-lover ends up the victim of a sniper on a freeway & Munch, one step ahead of the cops, begins to look for answers.

I've thoroughly enjoyed meeting "Munch" Mancini, an oil-under-the-fingernails reluctant sleuth beset by all the ills of 1970s California, complete with a case of ironic Feminism, a budding trust in AA meetings & a selection of friends which range from those who care about her - a behavior she's not used to - & erstwhile street buddies who care only for high times & what she can do for them.

In No Offense Intended Munch who is still on parole, has been clean, sober & out of trouble for nearly a year although she still must check in weekly with her caseworker from hell. Meanwhile Munch does a lot of praying, keeps her little apartment spotless & repairs the cars that come into the shop where she landed in her previous adventure.

Now that she has her life relatively in control other urges begin to surface, namely to care for a child. There is this baby, abandoned by her ex-lover to a feckless welfare mother intent on living the survivalist life in the backwoods of Oregon, who tugs at her heart strings.

When she decides to do the favor she finds a murdered young couple in the same apartment complex where her ex-lover was known to live. Inside there is this bawling neglected baby & without another thought Munch rescues her along with car seat & baby stuff. It doesn't help her hard won reputation & sobriety when she finds a stash of dope hidden in the padding of the baby seat & Munch is sorely tested.

Barbara Seranella has a way with words, a keen sense of the absurd & a blunt-fingered approach to panic, passion & personalities. She writes an absorbing, entertaining, well-torqued mystery. Her heroine is believable, likable, thoughtful & someone I would want as a friend. I also liked Munch's newfound friends. When I met the friends from her past, stunted by their detour into drugs, sex & rock'n'roll, I was filled with dread.

Barbara Seranella has created a person worthy of the sobriquet: heroine; one who struggles with her own demons while thinking on her feet to protect the young & the innocent. She has also created an interesting & worthy foil for her heroine - a police department peopled by ordinary cops with troubles & prejudices of their own.

I highly recommend both of this author's works & look forward to her next. Very well done indeed!

Also by Barbara Seranella:
No Human Involved & reviewed Unwanted Company
(06/11/00)

Rebecca