Onetime mechanic Miranda Mancini reluctantly calls on some dangerous people from her past to help solve a murder Barbara Seranella's Munch Mancini--a 1970s ex-druggie and jailbird wrestling with her self-esteem and her future--was a blast of original air in the first book about her, No Human Involved . The only problem was that there seemed to be no way she could be as interesting or edgy ever again. Happily, it turns out that Seranella, a longtime car mechanic to the rich and famous of Los Angeles, is even better at tinkering with a word processor. No Offense Intended shows us a growing and changing Munch, while avoiding most of the traps that second books of a series can fall into. It must have been tempting, for example, to have Munch team up again with Lt. Mace St. John, the thorny but eventually very sympathetic cop who helped her in the first book. But that would have diminished both her fragility and inventiveness, giving her someone too solid to lean on. Instead, we find Munch on her own when an ex-lover rolls into Happy Jack's Auto Repair in the San Fernando Valley to ask her to look after his baby daughter. And when that lover is found dead on the San Diego Freeway, mixed up in a biker gang's dangerous arms dealings, Munch does much of the dirty work on her own before linking up with a LAPD homicide detective. Equally inventive is the natural way Seranella uses Munch's car repair skills to give the character depth and move the story along without making too much of it. Locked up in jail and needing to smoke and make a phone call, Munch persuades a reluctant guard to loosen up by telling her how to fix the ignition on her '67 Camaro Super Sport. The explanation is so wonderfully authoritative that the page (158) should be copied by anyone who owns that car. As for the rest of this moving and exciting book, you'll be passing it around a lot, as well. --Dick Adler It sounds simple enough: Just pick up Sleaze John Garillo's baby Asia from the neighbor who's been watching her while Sleaze has been, uh, busy, and deliver her together with her baby gear to Sleaze's sister Lisa Slokum. But nothing is simple when you're a recovering alcohol-and-drug abuser on probation, like Venice car mechanic Munch Mancini, and nothing is simple when it involves Sleaze, who can't even make it through the day he turns up at Happy Jack's Auto Repair without getting himself shot on the freeway. Munch, on her way to check in with her probation officer in Santa Monica, just happens to drive past Sleaze's wrecked truck and pulls over, marking the first of two times she'll flee a crime scene. (She also ducks out of an autopsy she's sneaked into.) Caught between a drug-running sharpshooter who's firing ammunition stolen from a National Guard Armory and the FBI control freaks investigating the robbery, Munch ends up pairing off in a wary cat-and-mouse game not with saintly Lt. Mace St. John (No Human Involved, 1997), but with Homicide detective Jigsaw Blackstone, who's already in bed with the FBI, courtesy of the sexiest chess game since The Thomas Crown Affair. Things would look bleak for starchy Munchif, that is, there were any serious doubt about who's behind the crime spree. Munch is still a great heroine, but this follow-up lacks the energy and originality that gave her debut such edgy promise. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "Fast-paced.Seranella's prose is lean and mean." -- -- L.A. TIMES "Fast-paced.Seranella's prose is lean and mean." -- L.A. TIMES "Seranella.keeps the storyline moving at a brisk pace, with surprises around every corner." -- CHICAGO TRIBUNE "Seranella.keeps the storyline moving at a brisk pace, with surprises around every corner." -- --CHICAGO TRIBUNE "A splendid read. It's a worthy successor to No Human Involved , and in some ways a richer and more satisfying book. Seranella's a wonderful guide. This story takes us into...the heart of Miranda Mancinia recovering soul. Bravo again for Barbara Seranella." -- T. Jefferson Parker, author of Where Serpents Lie " No Offense Intended is really a wonderful book. Barbara Seranella has masterfully woven an intricate and fast-moving story around a set of fully drawn and engaging characters. You feel the truth in all of them. But the real truth and the real story here is Munch Mancini's noble struggle for survival in a harsh world. You can't help but take this womanand this bookto heart." -- Michael Connelly, author of Blood Work Barbara Seranella lives in California with her husband and her dogs. She quit her job as an auto mechanic to write full-time. Her first book, No Human Involved was a Los Angeles Times bestseller.