Services Set for Seranella

From the Orange County Register:

A public memorial tribute for Barbara Seranella, the popular Orange

County mystery writer who died Jan. 21, has been scheduled for 1 p.m.

Sunday at the Irvine Ranch Water District, 15600 Sand Canyon Ave.,

Irvine.

Seranella, who was 50 when she died while awaiting a

liver transplant, spent time in a hippie commune, riding with an outlaw

motorcycle gang and working as a gas station attendant and auto

mechanic before writing her first mystery novel, “No Human Involved.”

It was published in 1997 and rose to No. 5 on the Los Angeles Times

best-seller list.

Seranella went on to see seven more books

in that series published. A new book, “Deadman’s Switch,” based on a

different character, is expected to be released in April.

The new book is quite good, and it would have been intriguing to see where Seranella would have taken her crisis-management character, Charlotte Lyon, in subsequent installments. Now we won’t know.