An Unacceptable Death (Munch Mancini Novels) - Hardcover

Seranella, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312347987 ISBN 13: 9780312347987

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2005

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Barbara Seranella was born in Santa Monica, California and grew up in Pacific Palisades. After a restless childhood that included running away from home at the age of fourteen, joining a hippie commune in the Haight, and riding with outlaw motorcycle clubs, she decided to settle down and do something normal---she became an auto mechanic. Barbara retired from wrenching in 1993.

Barbara is a member of the Orange County, Los Angeles, and San Diego chapters of Sisters in Crime (although she is probably one of the few members who was ever actually a criminal), and the Mystery Writers of America. She lives in La Quinta and Laguna Beach, California.

Reviews

Starred Review. At the start of Seranella's outstanding eighth Miranda "Munch" Mancini mystery (after 2004's Unwilling Accomplice), the Los Angeles auto mechanic is enjoying a domestic stability that she never thought possible after her sordid existence as a drug addict and prostitute. Indeed, the challenge Seranella faces as her heroine moves further away from her lurid past is to keep the sense of conflict alive. She certainly accomplishes this when Munch's fiancé, detective Enrique "Rico" Chacón, is shot dead by his fellow cops in a drug bust gone wrong. We learn that there had been a bounty put on Munch's head by the newly reformed Satan's Pride Motorcycle gang (whom Munch had helped take down years back) and that Rico's death may have resulted from his attempts to protect her. To compound matters, the police department is withholding Chacón's pension from his family, claiming that he was corrupt. Determined to clear his name and to get revenge, Munch sets out on a dangerous investigation of her own. This is character-driven crime fiction at its finest by one of the genre's most accomplished stylists. (Jan.)
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*Starred Review* Prison inmates often have the image of the Virgin Mary tattooed on their backs to help ward off would-be assaulters. Narcs put ballpoint pen refills, rather than actual pens, in their pockets to look more street, less cop. Details like these fill Seranella's Munch Mancini thrillers, spiking their authenticity. Mancini herself has crawled up from the streets. As an ex-abuse victim, ex-prostitute, ex-biker old lady, ex-drug addict, she is both forever conscious of how lucky she is to be one of the few to escape and how unlucky the many others are who never do; this perspective, plus street smarts, enables her to go undercover convincingly. At this novel's start, Mancini works as an auto mechanic in Santa Monica, has a nine-year-old daughter, and is involved in a relationship with an undercover narcotics detective. Her newfound, straight-world happiness is blasted to pieces, however, when her boyfriend is shot to death in a drug raid. A detective friend on the LAPD enlists Mancini's aid--investigators into the shooting suspect that her boyfriend was killed by dirty cops. Mancini's contact wants her to work as a CI, confidential informant, to ferret out the truth and expose the remaining corrupt cops. Mancini excels at undercover work in a way that cops not born to the street and its incessant game playing can't begin to match. Her descent into the L.A. coke trade is both fascinating and terrifying to witness. An absolutely first-rate heroine in a compelling story. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312347987
• ISBN 13: 9780312347987
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256