Lisa Scottoline: Save Me

Rose remembered holding Thomas in the street, then him looking up at her, seeing her in the Cleopatra makeup. Now that she’d gotten a good look at Janine, with her dark hair and eyeliner, Rose understood why he’d mistaken her for his mother, on that dark night.

“You can understand that,” Jim continued, more softly. “She wishes that she’d been there, to hold him. Not for her, but for him. That he wouldn’t think he was alone in this world. That he knew we loved him, that she loved him, right until the very end. He was our youngest, you know. Our baby. Her baby.”

Rose swallowed hard. She would never forget what she’d said to Thomas, right before he passed. Maybe there was something she could do for the Pelals, after all. Maybe the words that had been haunting her all these years would be the words that eased Janine’s heart.

“You can see that, can’t you? Being a mother yourself.”

“Yes, I do understand, and I’d feel exactly the same way.” Rose took a deep breath. “Janine, I have something I think you should know.”

I’ve written seventeen novels in almost as many years, and while I’ve always had emotionality in my books, more recently I’ve turned to writing about the most emotional of all relationships, mother and child. There may be some irony to this, now that I’m an empty-nester, but perhaps I finally have the perspective and the distance (and the time!) to examine the relationship and plumb it for my fiction. This is a long way of saying thank you very much to my amazing daughter, Francesca, and to my mother, Mary, both of whom have taught me everything I know about the richness and complexity of the bond between mother and child, not to mention, simply put, about love.

In this regard, thanks, too, to my gal pals, all of whom are terrific mothers: Nan Daley, Jennifer Enderlin, Molly Friedrich, Rachel Kull, Laura Leonard, Paula Menghetti, and Franca Palumbo. They’re my kitchen cabinet, and if we’re not talking about our daughters, we’re talking about our mothers. All of our everyday conversations inform Save Me , so thanks, ladies, for being yourselves, and for helping me, every day.

This novel raises a number of legal, ethical, and moral questions, and for those I needed research and help. This is where I get to thank the experts, but also where I have to make clear that any and all mistakes are mine. Thanks to my ace detective, Arthur Mee, criminal lawyer Glenn Gilman, Esq., and special thanks to Nicolas Casenta, of the Chester County District Attorney’s Office. I also want to thank Professor Marin Scordato, of the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, for his excellent advice, expertise, and seminal article, Understanding the Absence of a Duty to Reasonably Rescue in American Tort Law .

Thanks so much to Principal Christopher Pickell, teacher Ed Jameson, and staff members June Regan, Kathy Kolb, and Brett Willson, and all the rest of the wonderful staff at Charlestown Elementary School. Principal Pickell took his valuable time to answer all of my questions to make Save Me as realistic as possible, and we should repeat that Reesburgh Elementary herein is not Charlestown Elementary, but is completely fictional. Still, I could not be more grateful to them all for their time and guidance, and more importantly, for all they do for children. There is no more important job than educating the generations to come. I’ve always admired teachers, and still do. I wouldn’t be a writer but for the great public education I received, and I never realized how exhausting, albeit rewarding, teaching can be until I started teaching a course I developed titled “Justice & Fiction” at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. So thanks so much to all of my teachers, past and present, including my students-who are teachers, too, in their own way.

Thanks so much, too, to the team of genius firefighters who not only keep all of us safe, but even took time out of their day to help me imagine a fictional fire. Thank you so much to Mike Risell, Karen and Duke Griffin, Dave Hicks, and Mark Hughes of Kimberton Fire Company. And thanks for expert EMT advice and counsel to Rebecca Buonavolonta and Sergey Bortsov. And thanks to Robin Lynn Katz.

A special hug of thanks for their time and expertise to everybody at Herr Foods of Nottingham, Pennsylvania. It’s important to reiterate here that everything in the book is fictional, but I was helped to create Homestead by the great people at Herr Foods, starting with ace Public Relations Manager Jennifer Arrigo, and most especially the Herr Family: J.M. Herr, Ed Herr, Gene Herr, and Daryl Thomas. A special thanks for the consultation to Fran Dolan, Jim Rock, Bill Beddow, and all the hard-working staff who showed me the ropes.

Thank you to the gang at St. Martin’s Press, starting with my great editor and super-supportive coach, Jennifer Enderlin, who inspires me and guided this book, and to John Sargent, Sally Richardson, Matthew Shear, Matt Baldacci, Jeff Capshew, Nancy Trypuc, Monica Katz, John Murphy, John Karle, Sara Goodman, and all the wonderful sales reps. Big thanks to Michael Storrings, for an astounding cover design. Also hugs and kisses to Mary Beth Roche, Laura Wilson, and the great people in audio books. I love and appreciate all of you.

Thanks and big love to my wonderful agent and friend, Molly Friedrich, as well as the Amazing Paul Cirone, and the brilliant Lucy Carson. My dedicated and amazing assistant and best friend is Laura Leonard, and she’s invaluable in every way, and has been for twenty years. And she’s a great mom! Thanks, too, to Annette Earling, my Web diva, who runs scottoline.com, where I exist only in Photoshopped form.

Thanks to my family and friends, for everything. They know I love them and they usually get the last word, if not the dedication, in my books. But this book is different, because the last word, and the dedication, goes to my dear friend Joseph Drabyak, who recently passed away, much too soon. I dedicated this book to Joe because he was dedicated to books.

I met Joe almost twenty years ago as the bookseller at my local independent bookstore, Chester County Books & Music Company, and I grew to be great friends with him and his wife, Reggie. He was an early champion of my books and advocated for books he loved as well as for independent bookstores, and eventually he became the hardworking president of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association. Joe understood that books bring people together, and that reading empowers, enriches, nurtures, and fuses us, one to the other. Before Joe passed, I sat with him and told him I’d dedicate my next book to him, which made him happy. And though he’d read every one of my books in manuscript form, he didn’t get to read this one.

It is, now and forever, my loss.