No Offense Intended, by Barbara Seranella, a-minus,Narrated by Paul Boehmer, Produced by audible inc. and downloaded from audible.com.This is the second in the series. Munch Mansini has, in the past year, put together a reasonably good life for herself. She is employed full-time as a mechanic, and is good at her job. But she does have one problem. People keep appearing from her old life, wanting a favor, to borrow money, to try to get her to use drugs or alcohol again. The latest in this run of old friends was a former lover, known as Sleeze who comes to her for a favor. He wants her to pick up his baby daughter, (the mother is dead) and take the baby plus her belongings to his sister. When Munch goes to pick up the baby, she finds the neighbors dead. Sleeze has been shot to death by a sniper on the highway. Munch hates to leave the baby with Sleeze’s sister who has children of her own which she isn’t raising very well. The FBI are involved as well, and Munch starts to believe that they deliberately set Sleeze up as a snitch, which he would not have done. So she decides to help the police find the killers, and she wants to take the baby who now is an orphan. She must deal with drug dealers and post-hippies, and hell’s angels to finally reach a solution.
I have never seen a bad review of a Seranella book, and I can't figure out precisely why this series does not work for me. Perhaps it's the constant feeling of impending violence, even though it mostly does not happen. I disliked the first Munch Mancini novel so much that I never finished it (and it's been years since I did that). This is my second try and I had to make myself finish it. Mancini seems a bit flat as a character for me, as do most of the book's other characters, the plot focuses heavily on drugs(which does not interest me much), and the writing is not engaging. I realize I am out of step, but this is my last read in this series. Really 2.5 stars.
