Lisa Scottoline - Dirty Blonde

For the record, Centralia actually exists, or at least, it did. The way it’s described in Dirty Blonde , as well as how it came to its present state, is real and true. I won’t retell the details that find their proper home in the book, but Centralia was a coal-mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania and was barely locally known, despite its horrendous underground mine fire. I didn’t know anything about it until fifteen years ago, when I drove through its ruins and found myself engulfed in sulfurous steam. It was an impossibly eerie experience, and I always wanted to write about it, and last year began to do the research.

By way of background, Centralia and the surrounding Appalachian towns were one of the few places in the country that anthracite coal, which is especially hard, could be found. Anthracite began being mined in Centralia in the 1800s, so that by the 1900s, the town sat atop a beehive of mines, exploited by different companies and poachers. The mine fire that would eventually ruin Centralia started in 1962, in the landfill near St. Ignatius church, school, and cemetery. The borough council cleaned up for Memorial Day by burning the trash in the landfill, but unfortunately, a coal mine lay beneath. Flames must have fallen into the mine and set fire to the coal, and over the next several decades, state and federal governments lost chance after chance to put out the fire when it was still possible to do so. It rages out of control, even today, leaving Centralia to be called “the poor man’s Dante’s Inferno.” Those of you who want to read further will find every question answered in the excellent book, Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire (1986), by David DeKok. The nonfiction account reads like a great detective story, owing to David’s skilled reporting and writing. When I found the book, I contacted David, and he was generous enough to read Dirty Blonde in manuscript and backstop me on accuracy. I thank him very much for all his help. (Any errors are mine, nevertheless.) David also permitted me to use his photos of old Centralia on my website, which make a fascinating contrast with my own current photos. To see them and to read more about Centralia, you can visit www.scottoline.com.

I visited Centralia to research the scenes in the book, accompanied by the amazing friend to whom this book is dedicated, Laura Leonard. Laura was my first publicist at HarperCollins, almost fifteen years ago, and now she works with me as my assistant and partner in crime. Laura is so dedicated to my books that she would walk through fire-or, at least, stinky steam-with me. I won’t enumerate all the other things she and her family do for me and mine. Laura, this book is dedicated to you, with love and deepest thanks.

In other thanks, love and gratitude to Rachel Kull, for her friendship, support, and expertise in the area of children and autism. I also relied greatly in this regard upon the wonderful librarians at the Princeton, New Jersey, public library, who helped me so much (though I never identified myself and look nothing like my author photo, which is complete fiction). I am also indebted to the following authors for their excellent books on the subject: Kathy Labosh, The Child with Autism at Home (2004); Lynn McClannahan and Patricia Krantz, Activity Schedules for Children with Autism (1999); Richard Simpson, Autism Spectrum Disorders (2004); Philip Abrams and Leslie Henriques, The Autism Spectrum Parents’ Daily Helper (2004).

Deepest thanks to Glenn Gilman, Esq., criminal defense genius, who helps me on each book, and Arthur Mee, retired detective extraordinaire, who put away bad guys and looked way hot doing it. Thanks again to Jerry Hoffman, Esq., and his son, Professor David Hoffman, Esq., of the genius lawyer family of Philadelphia.

In addition, I have a tradition of permitting worthy causes to auction off the names of fictional characters in my books. I always make these people good guys, because their generosity helps so many. So thanks to Adrienne Drost (for Pennsylvania Home of the Sparrow for abused women and children); Julie Williamson (for Kids Love a Mystery, the MWA’s program for children’s literacy), Marvin “Mitty” Shiller (Thorncroft Therapeutic Riding Center), Bonner Menking (Kids Love a Mystery), Jill Wiederseim (French amp; Pickering Conservation Trust), Paul Roots (Miami Valley Literacy Council), Gloria Sullivan (Thorncroft Therapeutic Riding Center), Jessica Conley (West Chester University), Abby Linderman (Great Valley Community Education Foundation), William Sasso (Philadelphia Free Library), Andrew Kingston (Sleuthfest), Amy Nislow (Philadelphia Free Library), and Tom and Sue McGinn (Everyone’s favorite Santa and Mrs. Claus). And in memory of Fiona McCann, whose name was a gift from Joanne Leone and Sherill Silverman-Posner to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. And in memory of my old friend Bob Rogers, whose kindness and hard work for so many charitable causes was limitless.

On the publishing front, love and deepest thanks to my wonderful agent Molly Friedrich, and to Aaron and Arleen Priest and Paul Cirone, too. Thanks to Lou Pitt, for his support and his expertise. Thanks and love to my wonderful and forever editor, Carolyn Marino, and the whole great HarperCollins team: Jane Friedman, Brian Murray, Michael Morrison, Jonathan Burnham, Kathy Schneider, Josh Marwell, Brian Grogan, Nina Olmsted, Christine Boyd, Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich, Will Staehle, Adrienne Di Pietro, Tom Egner, Ana Marie Allessi, and Jennifer Civiletto.

Finally, deepest thanks and love to my friends and family, fur covered and otherwise.

Lisa Scottolineis the New York Time bestselling author of twelve novels and a former trial lawyer and judicial law clerk. She won the Edgar Award, the highest prize in crime fiction, and teaches Justice and Fiction at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, her alma mater. She serves on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America and the National Italian American Foundation. Her books are published in more than twenty languages, and she remains a lifelong resident of the Philadelphia area. She welcomes reader e-mail and visits to her website, www.scottoline.com.