Amazon.com Review
Miranda "Munch" Mancini is quite a woman. She's a recovering drug and alcohol abuser; she's a southern California auto mechanic; she's the sole proprietor of a fledgling limo service; she's a loving mother to her 7-year-old adopted daughter, Asia. Set in the early 1980s, Barbara Seranella's fourth Mancini novel,
Unfinished Business, has Munch and her friend, detective Mace St. John, in hot pursuit of a serial rapist-murderer who's killed one of her clients, the socialite Diane Bergman, and raped another, the actress Robin Davies. Worse--for all concerned, including the rapist--the rapist has come close enough to Munch's daughter to pin a note to her coat, and now Munch is getting threatening calls:
The phone rang again. Asia reached for it. "No," Munch said, with more force than she had intended. Asia jumped back. Munch picked up the receiver, tried to give Asia a comforting smile, and said "Hello?"
"You have a nice house," the strangely distorted voice said. It vibrated, sounding like the voice of that robot in that old television show Lost in Space. The cadence was slow, as if the speaker needed an extra moment to prepare each word. "But you really shouldn't take the same route home every day."
Gritty, creepy in the extreme, and at times positively harrowing,
Unfinished Business is a most welcome entry into the Mancini line (
No Human Involved,
No Offense Intended,
Unwanted Company). Seranella's characters are wholly yet finely drawn, their dialogue is true, and the mounting urgency she packs into this novel's pace, particularly down the home stretch, is palpable.
--Michael Hudson
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Seranella's lady mechanic is back fixing cars and catching criminals in this fourth Munch Mancini crime novel (Unwanted Company, etc.), featuring the spunky auto-repair gal and her sidekick, Det. Mace St. John. In mid-'80s L.A., Munch, mechanic to the rich and famous, is distraught when a customer, philanthropic socialite Diane Bergman, is found dead on the side of the freeway, dressed in a negligee with electrocution marks on her body. The details of Diane's murder resemble a rape case Mace has been investigating for a few months; when he discovers that a third case suggests the same modus operandi and that the victim, Robin Davies, is also a customer at Munch's garage, the mechanic and the cop join forces once again. Along with her friend D.W. from the Meals-on-Wheels program, Munch tries to comfort Robin, who has not left her home since being raped. As soon as Robin begins to accept support, Munch starts getting threatening phone calls from the rapist, who knows too much about her life and the routine she follows with her seven-year-old adopted daughter, Asia. Robin disappears, Mace has a heart attack and suddenly Munch is left alone to catch the bad guy. More threats to Munch and her daughter follow, to everyone's dismay, yet the reader feels little trepidation. A cast of one-dimensional secondary characters take their places as stock suspects until the perpetrator's identity is revealed with little clue as to a motive. All flaws considered, Munch is a likable protagonist, and Seranella's 20 years as a mechanic puts an unusual spin on this series. Yet among so many other crime novels boasting strong heroines, this one doesn't stand out.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
