Break and Enter (49 page)

SEVERAL INDIVIDUALS HELPED ME
gain access to the world of the Philadelphia prosecutor. Charles Gallagher, deputy for policy and planning in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and Joseph Wolfson, a former Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney now in private practice with Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius, both shared with me their impressions and experiences. My conversations with these individuals did not involve specific, attributable identification of any living individuals, either attorneys, defendants, or political figures in Philadelphia. In fact, our discussions were predicated upon this limitation by these men
and
by myself. Similarly, although the lawyer protagonist of this novel has the surname of Scattergood, no relation to or characterization of any living person named Scattergood is meant or implied.

Mr. Wolfson and Thomas Schindler, an Assistant District Attorney in the Chester County (Pennsylvania) District Attorney’s Office and a friend for more than twenty years, checked the manuscript for legal and procedural accuracy. Their corrections and suggestions were invaluable. Any and all errors should be attributed to the author, however. A nod of thanks goes also to the men and women of Philadelphia City Hall, official and distinctly unofficial, who shared with me information about the building and the courts.

For several details about historical Philadelphia, I have depended on

“Once Upon a Time,” an article by Stephanie Grauman Wolf, Ph.D., which appeared in
Bryn Mawr Now.

I wish to express my gratitude to James Michener and the Copernicus Society for their generous fellowship in support of the writing of this novel.

Finally, I wish to thank David Groff, my editor, whose willingness to take on an unpublished writer was no less crucial than his energy and expertise in bringing forth this story.