Munch Mancini Books In Order

Publication Order of Munch Mancini Books

The Munch Mancini is a famous series of mystery, crime fiction, thriller, and suspense novels. It was written by a highly popular American writer named Barbara Seranella. The series consists of a total of 8 books, which were released between the years 1997 and 2005. Each of the books in this series features the chief protagonist in the form of a former drug addict & junkie, and a current auto-mechanic named Munch Mancini. Author Seranella has described the character of Munch Mancini based on her own life. She has described her as an auto-mechanic living in Venice, California. Munch has the habit of getting herself involved in trying to solve the mysterious cases in and around the city. She keeps trying to recover from her past’s difficult experiences of child abuse.

Author Barbara Seranella has done the setting of the books during the time of the 1970s decade in Los Angeles, California. All the characters in this mystery series look very exciting and play important roles in carrying the series forward. In addition to Munch Mancini, the other important characters mentioned by Seranella include Mace St. John, Digger, Ruby, etc. Mace St. John is introduced into the series as a homicide detective, who comes across Munch Mancini while solving a mysterious murder case. At first, he suspects her to be the culprit, but later, his doubts about her get cleared and he teams up with her to get to the bottom of the mystery. After their successful investigative work in the first case, Munch Mancini and Mace St John go on to work on several other mysterious cases throughout the series.

Barbara Seranella was considered one of the prominent writers of the mystery genre. She has written a few very popular novels in her career. Seranella lost her life earlier this year after fighting a long battle with liver complications. She was born in Santa Monica and spent her initial years growing up in the Pacific Palisades. Author Seranella is believed to have experienced a very restless childhood. She had run away from her home at the age of 14. The next few years of her life were spent in roaming with hippies and outlaw gangs of motorcycle clubs. Later, Seranella became serious with her life and took the decision of settling down. She began having a normal life by working as mechanic at an auto-repair workshop. The work felt quite to her and she continued with this profession for several years.

At first, she was employed at the Sherman Oaks’ Arco station, and then five years later, Seranella joined the Texaco station located in Brentwood. She gave precious 12 years of her life to this station. With her hard work and dedication, Seranella became the service manager and entered into a happy marriage with the station’s boss. In 1993, author Seranella decided that the automotive career had run long enough for her to retire and focus on something else. This is when, Seranella gave a serious thought to writing stories. She had an interest in this field for a long time, but could not find time to write anything because of her involvement in the automotive industry. It did not take her much time to establish herself among the ranks of the noteworthy authors. Today, author Seranella is remembered for her exciting style of writing and using smart plotting, gritty realism, original female lead characters, and taut response in her books. Her death came as a huge shock to her fans, who were waiting eagerly for her next book’s release. Now, people can just read her Munch Mancini books over and over again, and remember her as a novelist with excellent writing skills, who entertained them with her mystery stories for more than 2 decades.

The debut book of the Munch Mancini book series written by author Barbara Seranella is entitled ‘No Human Involved’. It was released by the HarperTorch publication in the year 1997. At the start of the book’s story, Munch Mancini is shown as a junkie, who wishes to get rid of her drug addiction. She takes the first step in the direction of having a normal life by taking up the job of an auto mechanic. Munch tries her best to lose all the old habits. Her life is turned upside down when detective Mac St John gets on the trail thinking that she has committed a brutal murder. Munch doesn’t know what to do or how to prove her innocence. She doesn’t even know who to approach for help as there is no one she knows.

Munch Mancini thinks there is no point in running, if she has to come out clean, she will have to face the problem on her own. So, Munch takes it upon herself to carry out the murder investigation and come up with clues and evidences to make it clear that she is not the murderer. She doesn’t intend to go after the real murderer, but on the insistence of Mace St. John, she agrees to help catch the real killer. In the end, Munch Mancini succeeds in overcoming the huge problem and her hopes of living like a normal person peacefully remain alive. Almost all the characters of the book look great. The setting of the 70s era is described very well by the author. The book managed to attract a large number of readers with interests in mystery books. It ended up becoming very successful. A year later after its release, the book was nominated for a Barry Award in the category of the Best First Book. All of this led to much more success of the novel and helped author Seranella in getting noticed for her work.

The next installment of this exciting series is called ‘No Offense Intended’. It was also published by Harper Torch in 1999. The book continues to feature Mace St John and Munch Mancini in the main roles. At the beginning of the story of the book, it is depicted that Munch Mancini tries everything in her capacity to remove her tag of a substance abuser. She sets herself in the course of a respectable normal by becoming an expert mechanic. Munch has remained motivated in staying away from drugs, but she often feels the temptation to get back to the old habits. The frequent temptations make it difficult for her, but she doesn’t give up. One such temptation comes in the form of her former lover named Sleaze Garillo. He approaches Munch to ask for a favor.

Then suddenly, he disappears is not found anywhere. The cops come to Munch Mancini for questioning as she is the Sleaze was last seen with. Munch doesn’t intend to get involved, but the circumstances become such that she couldn’t help. She undergoes the hunt for finding the truth. The search makes her come across the difficult past experiences that she has been attempting to overcome. Munch knows that she cannot turn back and has to deal with to in order to come clean. It appears to be the toughest battle of life that Munch has decided to fight as she decides to protect Sleaze Garillo’s baby daughter. Also, she wants to know what happened to Sleaze and how did he disappear mysteriously? This book too found many takers and became popular. It was appreciated by numerous readers for its interesting story, engaging characters, and intriguing setting and storyline.