Listening to (and Laughing With) Lisa Scottoline

Lisa Scottoline’s books are not cozy. They’re categorized as legal thrillers/suspense. But Lisa herself isn’t a big fan of genre distinctions. During an appearance on Saturday, March 18 at my library (Warren-Newport Public Library in Gurnee IL), she said there are only two kinds of books … good ones and bad ones.

I must confess I’ve never read one of Lisa Scottoline’s books. But after being entertained by her for more than an hour on Saturday and listening to the audience of 80-100 avid fans laugh at her self-effacing humor, I’m going to take the plunge and read her new book, Dirty Blonde.

Anyone who loves libraries as Lisa obviously does is OK in my book. She began her presentation with stories of growing up in a family of non-readers whose home contained just one book. It wasn’t the Bible (the audience’s guess) but TV Guide. She went on to give testimony about the importance of libraries and librarians in her own life. (The feeling is mutual; the librarian who introduced Lisa on Saturday admitted she wrote her first fan letter to an author to Lisa a decade ago.)

While she was at the library, she not only picked up a cookbook put together by the Friends of the Library as a fundraiser, but she gave a commercial for it, urging those in attendance to buy it AND asked several of the Friends who were in the audience to autograph the cookbook for her. Many of those in attendance brought copies of Dirty Blonde with them for the author to autograph, and a local store handled long lines of people buying the book that afternoon.

Lisa’s rapid-fire presentation kept the audience entertained and laughing. She went through a brief history of justice and the legal system as seen in the popular culture, starting with television’s Perry Mason and continuing on through the movies To Kill a Mockingbird, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Godfather, Cousin Vinny and The Firm.

A successful trial lawyer in the 1980s, Lisa Scottoline wanted to find a career that allowed her to stay home with her newborn daughter, who is now 20. About the time John Grisham was gaining success with his legal thrillers, Lisa decided a writing career might be just the ticket. She wrote for five years, getting constant rejections, until her first book, Everywhere That Mary Went, was published in 1994. (Today Lisa still times her book tours and writing schedule so that she is able to spend time with her daughter while she’s home for school vacations.)

She spoke about how she came to write some of her books. One of her books, Killer Smile, was based on having a half-sister she didn’t know she had knocking on her door and introducing herself.

Lisa, who admits to being 50, endeared herself to the menopausal and post-menopausal women in the audience when she admitted to having a hot flash in the middle of her presentation.

The very gracious author brought along enough Tastee Cakes (mini powdered donuts -- a Philadelphia treat) to feed the audience, saying her mother taught her never to go to someone’s house empty-handed.

If you have a chance to meet Lisa Scottoline on her current book tour, treat yourself and go! She’s a wonderful, down-to-earth speaker. You can find out about Lisa’s current book tour (and more) at her website. Click here: http://scottoline.com

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