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.
From Booklist:
*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
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