From the author of the acclaimed Munch Mancini crime novels comes a new mystery series featuring an appealing and resourceful sleuth.

 Charlotte Lyon is a woman who can handle a crisis.  She’s turned that talent into a lucrative business in crisis management, in which she supplies excellent, and often unusual, advice to suddenly troubled company heads about how to handle the press, shareholders, and the public.  When necessary, she goes beyond the basic job description to discover the cause of the crisis itself, and whether it was an accident or not.

The job she has now is one of the latter.  The mysterious derailment of a train has killed both the engineer and a famous movie actress. The disaster gets international attention and Charlotte is brought in to manage the heated situation. But Charlotte has her own demons to contend with---the recent death of her husband and a dangerously narcissistic mother. And the more she investigates, the more danger surrounds her. But no matter the threat, she will get to the bottom of this tragedy, or die trying.

Barbara Seranella, a unique and beloved voice in crime fiction, delivers a crafty puzzle and vivid, unforgettable characters in this first book of an exciting new series.

 

"In this fresh first of a new series from Seranella, crisis management expert Charlotte Lyon — who channels her obsessive-compulsive disorder into more productive, professional hypervigilance — works to exonerate the owners of the Sunliner Express train that derailed en route to Palm Springs, Calif. A recent widow, Charlotte teams up with sexy, motorcycle-riding investigator Todd Hannigan from the National Transportation Safety Board, and the two suspect possible sabotage. Several witnesses saw a mysterious, helmeted Samaritan pulling survivors to safety before zooming off on his motorcycle. Why didn't he stick around for kudos? While Charlotte finds herself increasingly attracted to Todd, she wonders where he was at the time of the train wreck. To complicate matters, one of the two fatalities was movie-star-turned-philanthropist Rachel Priest, whose spoiled son, Sherwood, shows up and threatens a lawsuit. Then up pops Charlotte's dysfunctional mother, who competes with demands for her attention. Fans of Seranella's Munch Mancini series (An Unacceptable Death, etc.) will find much to like." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

The first in a new mystery series from the "Los Angeles Times" bestselling author of the Munch Mancini crime novels is a fascinating story about a clever homicide and the introduction of a woman who will both charm and amaze readers.

Barbara Seranella grew up in Pacific Palisades, California. 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, and that was the occupation she chose for her heroine when she switched from fixing cars to writing about them.

Deadman’s Switch was to be the first of a planned new series, but sadly, after a long and brave fight against liver disease, Seranella died in January 2007, at the age of fifty. She was a talented woman of unbelievable bravery with an unbeatable sense of humor, and everyone who knew her, whether in person or through her books, will join us in mourning her.