A Word on Words; 2439; Lisa Scottoline

or downwards the program building into the world of books and their other this week lisa scuttling the talks about legal tender jaros forward on words mr jon seaton hall chairman of the freedom form first amendment center at vanderbilt university once again welcome to word on words legal tender resist gobbling that's the book and that's the author and welcome to world war and that is that you talk about leo tell you they're in a work of fiction you have already won an edgar award as a mystery writer though that something you're very proud and already three books people away each year maybe for another lease is doubling book the common now legal tender comes a new and here was another mystery and it's a i would have to ask you about billy bennett better the arts have in america on

loria your heroine much of lisa's been a much of benny as lisa well along i am a i was an italian american lawyer he is a former lawyer mr fallon i think she's a natural born nine nine and she's very tall and i was at a roller and i think in the rolling aspect of benny as you said was the main character is important because she is somebody who is i think it's almost that she's tough guy by state of will and discipline and desire to be there and i think they really exemplifies that i mean she wants to be strong she wants to pull through it's not something that comes naturally to her as an aside a much of it something that comes naturally to a lot of

women but she tested out and when she finds herself in a situation where she is wrongfully accused of where she's going to tough it out to find out who was the real killer as i like that about her she's not mean she certainly elements of me which is a much better better me then she absolutely well she as she said michigan is as you say she's tough i guess with toughness comes tension particularly in her chosen feelings she has is her role take on when i think of a default most difficult cases of all exposing a police brutality and that is that is given her area and that image with with the cops arrived and that we begin with her and she's been in love with her law partner and when it happens out here and when that happens do it

a he has found them he's found another young love and downs but theres going to it that the anatomy she doesn't know it but he does it really been about this as frank he really has plans in essence it's really to people on henman divorce this is the it is the expert part where you you start to grow apart and he's dipped his life was going in a direction our away from the idealism that they founded the firm with you know we're going to fight for the first amendment then as a first amendment lawyer and we're gonna prosecute the police when they're corrupt and we're going to follow the path of poverty he starts to think i don't want that anymore and that's that's okay but that's what starts to happen there passed a version she hasn't caught up with it and he knows he's got a good potential points out there are a lot of dough and even today that business only rare with overflow the gravesite she only straight about it's actually less secure less all about her personal life beyond

her partner her mother is ill desperately ill she hasn't she has am woman works with her to keep her mother had a she has a ball and their golden retriever mean did you have a dollar bill and driven and there i hadn't i have a golden retriever and if anyone has a golden retriever hasn't only have to write him that people wear when you talk about a golden retriever that i don't understand but i make sure there's a dog in a book and out and force i hadn't have had some experience with chronic depression in the family and i wanted to use that because i think first i think i'm not alone in that and anyway it's it doesn't matter that his suppression i think all of us when you get to a certain age this is not a book about a twenty year old who has no problem this is a bit of a woman who has lived a whale it has it apparently she's caring for

an interim period has it any kind of disease or just means caring for i thought what's the situation people understand and i wanted to use that to develop her character how she deals with her mother's depression and partly how she'd the ones dealing with a mother's depression and tells the reader something about her and i hope this critical eye contact is really important i worked really hard character thomas lived they have character and there is a definitive aspect i think of the characters separates one from another imagine the rolling i sort of sense that after the fight the argument the blowout that today about closing down the firm that she went wrong that night and a lot of reasons to get rid of attention and automatic pay to to focus to believe a little

bit but but mostly after that song or nearly a group lunch and then it turns out that it was the worst thing she could have done that's right well you tell the viewers will it puts her in a place without an alibi and it's highly improbable alibi that she's in the middle of the river in the middle of the night she goes night rowing on it which is difficult to do anything he can crash and i think that's the kind of thing that most rowers well understand doing that at the same time of people who don't grow well thank you walk and that sixty so we were going to murder but you're right it is to release the tension i think that the when you when you're in that kind of stretches lost everything that point has lost a lover she's lost a law firm and this has been kicked out of it which is humiliating you know it so she the best way to to write it there's beer feels to lose yourself in someone else's er are for say she faces rolling and there's so much at the thing about when you wrote or of any sport where the ride

horses or running your thinking about a lot of variables and that's how you lose yourself i find once the city and do my head simply and i don't drink so that doesn't admit it didn't do something else or made me think about something else well the one thing she was not thinking about was her formal over the person with whom she'd had this shouting match gentle it was that had murdered or bad right she had no idea that things he had left her poison as well she was certainly an heir to the multi million dollar state and at the same time a suspect in a murder and the man she really was someone everybody in the office with her screaming her rack i mean i want to do and i want to do something to to show that first the police's

conclusion that she's the main suspect is entirely reasonable beaches no alibis that's credible at all and because she had every mode and then every incentive and every opportunity to to kumin and he's big enough and strong enough to get to do a physically do it arm and at the same time fisher's six foreign jewish it was one i think i didn't say when even by that's what i saw so the a new division of a very very tall woman who could play basketball it was practicing all good and i want to have an image that worked i mean she she calls herself a different place and amazon with a law degree or a golden retriever with a law degree and i think she is has a playfulness a batter but it's interesting in the really short so the person i am i said i want to play with the idea of what happens when you're tall i think the world of different people whether a man or a woman but critically for traveler what i have

to do the trial or its command attention yet to control a courtroom but to have the jury looking at you you have to have them looking to you for answers and persuasion solution want to have their tension have them we have to get their attention is not their number of flak about eternal for minor characters grady who becomes a lawyer in haiti her friend a confidante someone who takes care of takes care of her mother to say oh i thought i head and i just tell you were not going to tell you the monotonous all the mystery for you read the book but what i thought i had solved a mystery one when ahmed's son and neutered siam with a devious screaming can i have a cat girl who put on those bugs bunny front

to lead you down the wrong path and he led me down the wrong but i mean he led me down no longer had not the right not that the solemn ministry talk about a problem that about those three characters because each one has a distinctive identity and each one has a a separate persona and it's easy for me as a reader but understand that they are different people like this is that are there as a writer it's a little more difficult to make sure that that treats him on don't show up in the other point you have to build literally diplomatic that's interesting i think i hope they are differently i think they are differentiated sam is on very hard driving corporate lawyer happens to be gay he and your instinct is right because you're sensing when you read about him that he has he's

thinking something among them but in a way he wasn't thinking when you thought it was taking a taking something else when tommy was day i mean i thought i thought i had discovered part of the story and there was something more awareness of no that goes on and i think that's gotten as as when i'm writing and i don't write with an outline or any the sensible things that people do i just go for a start i have the characters in mind and so their character traits in mind i don't write in la where which we probably should do that too was that they just as it wouldn't do anything like that you don't don't have them in mind and then i start the book and i start to think well given what happens if somebody gets killed what is this little universe of characters how in a way that's consistent with their character so greatly who has a secret crush on many and is a very om been bright young lawyer really smart and smart very smart he'll instantly step into that fight he's not from a lawyer but he's put himself where

he's crazy better sweeter protect her unhappy is sort of interesting to me because hattie this is a band that is a woman who has grown up especially without a mother and her father's long once they had that i sort of think to myself what will the person like and at some point somebody might step in and they serve a mother figure for her it was sort of a it was sort of a mother figure and i think you know it was you or you push it because you know it's like when you know that you're doing the whole point is to write a really entertaining story that people can believe as attackers were but you know if like this does not allow me ask you about an aspect of it first and he was the one in dvds actor what a front of stunning me with sarah bernhardt when she decided that she would take on another identity and and done this represent who she was in order to get behind what was really all nationwide and lithuania

he does he want one he really did and he really did a really good nice saying in the process of that mean for somalia today was the idea that there was this giant law firm ronan and we knew it was the solo for me just to spice and whoever it was somebody who was a despicable it was some low use air around in charge of this hole prosser says of all the billing hours in subway when she's snuck into his office on one occasion she has written this memo saying look i'm a lawyer from philadelphia on with the philadelphia office i'm in town working on e

l stimson a fellow man walks out what a sweet one of sweet ginger did you like him a lot and i looked into it and i say hand i have a terrific editor aj they both read the manuscript and i could've gone on day it took i think to get stuff that name because i really wanted to spend time with him those people exist good i mean publishers weekly gave this book when before of you know what they said about it was it will change the way people think about lawyers and you know i joke in england with you danny is benny would do which has to look forward there's a bit of a showman about her people like mr khan there wasn't and i've met people like that you know people like that i'm the date had enormous integrity and intelligence they were what i thought wars were when i got into it i think there were many lawyers are in and i wanted to have him there he says a purpose dramatically but if you have a marvelous for some humor his back would be in those of law to be re introduced a program for

reflection of olive oil well let's talk about the really the financing without telling too much about what happens you decided there with asic the cop chasing her all or say all over the world would be dead to me were pursued and literally at one point chasing her i mean you give us a court room saying for the moment i'm wrong the mau mau aren't exposure the moment of disclosure talk about that with a unique id i couldn't figure out i'm at the sand didn't turn out to be a villain i thought he was susan vaughn i thought he wasn't but it didn't turn out to be the bill and after convincing myself that eileen probably was not somebody i really want to go after and eileen is still another mother know the character i don't know how you're going to i don't know a resolution that

accompanied know how you were going to break the case exposed a mystery of the coral scary and that worked i think he is the hardest part when you write a book like this is is i didn't get heroin is figuring out the puzzle and three that we're along in that but this was a really hard puzzle i don't think they're people like to guess who done it i think this is a really tough one and so i wanted to do in part because i want to bring it full circle started crew is important and then he has changed so much in that time and it's a different kind of cordon seen the first one she's essentially dropping water on her partner's lat two to distract the jury a trip like when i'm done and you've done that i've done it i admit it i did someone asked me didn't draw from life i realize he lives in fact that drawn from life was in the lap of a man it was knocked over a paper cut but it

was the same intent and purpose that may be guilty but she comes around at the end and now there's none of that there's no artifice to it she has counseling and she's been up for how many hours she's exhausted she's emotionally drained and she's got all the players in place and she knows that she can only do in the protected atmosphere wherever what you can get arrested and she has to actually say to their face and hope to die of this cross examination works i'm so it really seemed to be a natural thing to do and so i get married and he doesn't run as a seductive doe sees so that gets that's all that and we have a happy happy ending pretty much for well a pretty primitive have been ammunition really look were lovers i am on but but you know in that it works in the hand and an end for me it brought closure in a way that was so satisfying and fun writing

humor i think is the toughest of art forms and you do it very well only two about dropping one liners owners occasionally and by creating little anecdotes about people that are laughable is a calculated of the mantra now it's not calculated it is we have finally you know all you know much more active life as a writer journalist that that kind of writing i do is me in my little bedroom office and the box and there's not a lot of there's a lot of interplay with either the people like that's the one thing i miss the practice well i practice a lot but i got i miss people so essentially your relationships are entirely fictional and you start to wonder how far and i like to have fun this interview is fine so if it's own writing i think you know you have a city where most people i know have terrific sense of humor from the

receptionist at the hotel where checked in this morning to just being inhumane people are funnier and we're and more clever than they appear to the infection so i since deploying in how these people able to make you laugh and not because the beloved animal because i have somewhat to them so i hope that works that but that's what i did this program about this about his son is fighting out of that about how writers write and learn and it's interesting everybody doesn't have the same stop everybody doesn't suit in the same way some people like to arrive early in the morning sometimes late in the afternoon some people who have other careers right one of the lake whenever they can have on you well now the rightful time which is wonderful luxury and i switched to is to be around my daughters when a pretty much waiting on her school schedule i read ninety three when i'm really working hard on get up like

five sold get into big block of time before have to get her ready for school and then i work at night on the parts that are more emotional message received those are flesh it out and i'll stop and i if i know that it's going to be kind of tough to write from the heart and moving as opposed to maybe some action arm i'll say that for it late at night when i feel more tired in the makeup soften the inhibitions are down and you guessed let it fly it always know that they're dividing days in bed and their sundays one doesn't come out that comes comes badly strained well i had the experience that it seemed to some us cities of observing yourself and i hope that doesn't sound to it but i know i wait about two wednesday to lift her book sound and a guitar and talk to you and then i wait another month and then i start so really in truth i don't have been writing place because i don't start to laredo role and since i have it

he says it's the plot that that is character driven in proceeds from what the characters were due next i'm wrong so i haven't days when i think it's and goes less well than other days but for the most part i'm telling the story in getting the first day you were you i guess but i re read all the time and i try to get a job that tried to discipline myself not to go backwards but that doesn't work it doesn't work i don't know i was the bat i was the back with a little with that fear in my mind of that go forward and then try to push it forward so in a little while union today know the book salesman and that's an end to the pub right but i take a month or so after that you begin again iran and is it your idea to produce a book a year yes i like that it sounds like not very much and i worked very hard as a war in our very hard as a writer so i don't understand why taste the song but it seems to rain is a beer for tiny i mean he just did you

want to get it right every sense matters and doughnuts and that the mood is consistent i finally i had to sit and write right through to one to deny have brakes and mood you have fights with your editor now legend mike myers terrific comedienne along wonderfully she reads a way through the first draft and she does leave very serve macro suggestions think some people think that they sort of go through the senses she doesn't touch the census she says without too much mr groening i'm a little bored and i have no problem because i need to i need the reality test of a serious reader and i think he's cut back to their worries perfect you don't have too much you have to well i have enormous work for the character but it's self indulgent to go on and on you know it always has the pace has to be at their legal thriller you have time to arm i was a firearm but he simply yes we just an area that the plot has to move

fast and while not but let's talk about in the next book the book that's gonna come after leo and that is in the works and has gotten many rough justice by now rough justice and had you already begun to frame a lot for the little bit of that now no cause i i have that litigators call it a bath tub mentality we're trial or if they're had up with everything you need to know a fair trial medical plug everything goes out again i still i still have that mentality so i still have my bathtub full of these books that i haven't started down the line here you know obviously you write about what you know successful authors do some have to find out that in order to right it seems to me you write about the career you intended to pursue a career in the law can you envision yourself going outside of taking yourself

into another field other than what goes on the courtroom and what goes on other than what goes on in a law firm alone what goes on in the court justice system well let's say i've already had one career change and it's really tough to i mean i like her charge you would consider writing about something over and legal fictions yes i'm a well you know i consider the gulf a lawyer to go trial lawyer to writers of a career change and now its dependence it's exhausting and delighted to write as our fly change again i like this too much as a sigh having said that i'm teaching would become interesting i would ninety july with my teaching writing at all i love the contrary actually and i would never give up writing into an idea of how did you come to know what made you decide to make this transition what was it a personal thing i ended up getting having a child and then having that strain the marriage so that there

was a voice was their disillusionment about the practice now i love the practice and this practice i'd really like it but what there was was a change in lifestyle i had a baby and she was eight months old and i knew that i couldn't go back to that city are await trial many authors whose signature tell me they really hate traveling around the country promoting the books and that it's the agency and it's a it's a living out of a suitcase city hotels great cicadas eating a cow out of a pickup that we have no responsibilities and quite frankly you know you need me a lot of wonderful authors who were very well plotted n o n i'd encourage people to re book but frankly there's a lot of books a year and not all of them are promoted and i'm delighted that people i could talk about the book that you've read it that's left and it take nothing for brain when you get to behave just wow what a great thing happen to me i'm delighted to be in your enjoy meeting

people i say all their room i was lisa's family author of legal tender as ben our guest on a word on where your host is then john c reilly chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university this program was produced in the studios of wbez an nationally the piece