Unwanted Company - Hardcover

Seranella, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060192135 ISBN 13: 9780060192136

Publisher: Harpercollins, 2000

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Barbara Seranella is a former auto mechanic who lives in California with her husband and their dogs. She is the author of No Offense Intended and the Los Angeles Times bestseller No Human Involved.She welcomes mail at barbaraseranella.com

Reviews

Hanging on to a marginal existence by her fingernails, ex-addict Miranda "Munch" Mancini supplements her income as a Los Angeles auto mechanic by scrupulously running her own limo service--consisting of one sparkling Cadillac. But as this energetic novel rapidly shows, Munch takes on more than she bargained for when she accepts unscrupulous federal agent Raleigh Ward; his charge, sleazy Romanian diplomat Victor Draicu; and two beauteous female friends as week-long customers. It's 1984, the Olympics are coming to Los Angeles and the Eastern Bloc is to be pampered. But a serial killer is loose, viciously stabbing young women, and Munch gets involved in that nightmare when the two women last seen in her limo apparently become the murderer's latest victims. Matters complicate when Munch's reckless friend Ellen, just released from jail, takes Victor and Raleigh (and the limo) to Tijuana, only to see her two passengers actively involved in a triple homicide. Could either Raleigh or Victor--busy with their own highly illegal scam involving contraband weapons--be the serial killer? Unfortunately, this third in the Munch series (after No Offense Intended) shows its hand far too soon, yet its plot is still confusing. Yet despite these flaws and a pat ending, the novel's dizzying pace, married to Seranella's incisive portraits of flawed, vulnerable characters, makes for a satisfying novel. Agent, Sandy Dijkstra. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Continuing her climb out of alcohol, drugs, and prison, auto mechanic Munch Mancini has started a one-car limo service. She thinks she's hit the jackpot with Raleigh Ward, the high-rolling client who hires a car for eight hours and hints that he'll be back for more. But that's only because she doesn't know that (1) Ward is engaged in an absurdly improbable plot to turn Victor Draicu, a plutonium-toting Romanian diplomat, to the American way; (2) Ward and Draicu are also connected to a series of sex killings; and (3) her ex-con friend Ellen Summers is about to drop into the middle of this mess. So at the same time as Munch's old LAPD friend, Det. Mace St. John, is debriefing her about her strange night with Ward and his buddy, Ellen, who's decided to drive the men to Mexico to oblige her old buddy, is having an even stranger, and more dangerous, day. Nor do Ellen's problems end when she's back in the US, where the feds and the killers are looking for her behind every bottle. Ellen's casually gritty attempt to stay sober, in fact, runs away with the fanciful crime story, as she realizes that she's turning entirely too sensitive and unselfish to make drugs or prostitution work for her: Everybody's becoming real people around me. As usual, Seranella's third (No Offense Intended, 1999, etc.) is strongest with the scruffiest characters, who deserve a life beyond what the hand-me-down intrigue offers. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harpercollins
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060192135
• ISBN 13: 9780060192136
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352