SAVE ME by Lisa Scottoline
Lisa Scottoline’s latest novel SAVE ME starts off as a story about parental
love and protection. It involves elements of childhood bullying, parental
concerns, school responsibilities and other pertinent factors. As long as it is
focused on these themes the book is better than average, but about a third of
the way through it goes all Nancy Drew on us and that is its downfall.
The book focuses on Rose McKenna. She is a stay at home mom and is married to an
attorney named Leo. Rose has a daughter Melly from a previous marriage and a
baby son, John, by Leo. Melly was born with a port wine birthmark on her face
and she is very self conscious about it. Although she is only in the third grade
she has already had her fair share of bullying by her classmates. It was
so bad at their last school that the family moved to a new town hoping a new
school would be better.
When the book opens Rose is volunteering in the lunchroom at Melly’s school so
she can keep an eye on her daughter and see if there is any bullying going on.
There is. Another third grader named Amanda has decided it is her day to torment
Melly and she is doing a good job of it. Rose goes up to where Amanda and her
two friends are and tells them that bullying is not a good thing to do. Melly
has run away from where they are.
Suddenly there is an explosion and Rose and the three girls are knocked down.
When Rose regains consciousness the three girls are there but Melly is nowhere
to be found. There is a fire and people are running for the exits. Rose is torn
between helping the three girls who were tormenting Melly and going to search
for Melly. In essence her quandary is which child she should save first.
All of this makes for fascinating reading. Scottoline does a fantastic job of
making us understand Rose’s predicament from the start. We immediately see the
bond between mother and daughter and the protective instincts that arise. Later
we are horrified that one of the parents is considering suing Rose because she
did not do as much to help her daughter as the law requires.
It is when Rose begins to investigate the cause of the explosion and fire on her
own that the book goes off into Nancy Drew land. There are authorities and
lawyers available to do all this but Rose becomes a one woman investigative
team. Through a series of events she uncovers a murder and several other
nefarious acts.
Both of these elements of the book could have stood on their own but when they
are combined into one story they clash. You start out reading a warm story of
parental love and a mother’s fierce need to protect her child and then you
segue into the mystery of the month. It isn’t a bad mystery solving story but
it just doesn’t belong in the same book with the other aspect.
Lisa Scottoline is a very good author but this time she just had one plot too
many. This hurts the story rather than “saving” it.
SAVE ME is published by St Martin’s Press. It contains 373 pages and sells for
$27.99.