The 7th Canon

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The 7th Canon Page 31

by Robert Dugoni


  Kim smiled. “Say hello to your daughter, Peter.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I wrote the first draft of this book in 1996. In 2003, when my agent went out with my first three novels, we received an offer of publication but decided to go a different direction with the first two David Sloane novels. This book got put in the proverbial writer’s desk drawer. More than a decade later, after several more reiterations—OK, about ten rewrites—I’m pleased that it will be published.

  I’m pleased because this book includes so many people who meant so much to me. Sam Goldman was, for seventy-three of his eighty-five years on this planet, a newspaperman, selling the San Francisco Call-Bulletin on San Francisco streets when he was not yet a teenager. I don’t think Sam stopped for a minute from that point forward. He became a high school teacher, then a college journalism instructor and adviser, and that’s where he came into and changed my life. Sam’s enthusiasm and energy were boundless. I never saw him tire. He’d work all day in the journalism room, then jump in the car with his wife, Adele, and drive down to a Giants or 49ers or a Stanford game, and work in the press box. He called everyone hero, chief, and friend, even President Jimmy Carter. I know. I was there. When I mentioned it to him, he said, “He puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like me and you, chief.”

  He was one of a kind. He passed a couple of years ago, but I think of him almost every day. He’s with me when I teach and when I write. He’s with me every time I put on a tie—one of his ties, given to me by his daughter, Ruth. Usually I wear Mickey Mouse, but sometimes it is a tie with dozens of books on bookshelves. I keep smiling, Sam, for you. I keep smiling.

  Bo the Rhodesian ridgeback also passed before this book was published. After twelve years, he developed Alzheimer’s or dementia, and it was painful to watch our dog—our children’s first dog—deteriorate. We were grief-stricken when the time came to say good-bye, but Bo, being such a great dog, made the decision easy. He looked at my wife, whom he loved most of all, lay down on the veterinarian’s table, and just closed his eyes. He never regained consciousness. He just slipped away. We buried him with Nick, our first Rhodesian and his buddy.

  Archbishop Donatello Parnisi was based on my cousin, Monsignor Charles Durkin. “Cuz,” as I called him, was a bear of a man, more than six foot six and 250 pounds with a voice that made an organ envious. He smoked a pipe, and I recall the smell of it and the way he held it in his mouth, though I now wish he’d never smoked. Stomach cancer took him just short of his eightieth birthday. Charlie was the historian for the Branick, Mullins, and Durkin families. I loved him like he was my uncle. At his funeral, his nephew relayed Charlie’s battle with the then-archbishop of San Francisco. I, too, was aware of it. So I decided to make Charlie the archbishop of San Francisco as Donatello Parnisi. I hope you’re up there in heaven having a good laugh, Charlie.

  Lou Giantelli is loosely based upon my uncle Lou, who for many years was counsel to the Archdiocese of Sacramento and an incredibly formidable lawyer. Back in the day, he was also a celebrated football player. Lou used to come to our house and balance us on the soles of his feet, then drop us, but he always managed to catch us. He was great fun. He, too, has passed, along with his wife, Auntie Gerry. They were good to our entire family, always hosting us for Easter in Sacramento, where they had a pool and a big backyard. I loved them both.

  All other characters in this book are fictional.

  Let me also say that while Peter Donley’s father was a monster, my father, William Dugoni, was the best man I’ve ever known. I lost “Pops” in June 2008, but I was blessed to be there when he went. He taught me many life lessons. In death, he taught me perhaps the most important. As I sat at his desk the morning he died, I was looking at all his watches and rings. My dad liked to go to New York and collect them. Some weren’t worth much, but some he’d picked up on his and my mother’s travels, and they were worth some money. And yet, as I sat at his desk that morning, he spoke to me. He said, “It’s just stuff, Bobby. It’s just stuff.” And he’s right. I’ve never again worried about the stuff in life, and I’ve never felt so unencumbered.

  Because the novel was first written two decades ago, much of the settings have changed. At the time, I relied on my knowledge of San Francisco, having lived and worked there for fifteen years, as well as on research. The city has changed, however, and I’m well aware of that. So I kept the story set in 1987, when the Superior Courts remained in city hall, the Hall of Justice was on Bryant Street, the new jail hadn’t been built, and we didn’t have cell phones or e-mail. I love San Francisco. I know it isn’t perfect, but to me, it remains the greatest city on the planet.

  I’m blessed to have so many who have helped my career from the day I took a leap of faith and left the practice of law to write novels.

  Thank you to super agent Meg Ruley and her team at the Jane Rotrosen Agency, including Rebecca Scherer, who offers terrific suggestions for my manuscripts and is an absolute wiz on everything to do with e-books. From the day I wrote The 7th Canon, Meg said it would be published, and she was right, as she is with just about everything that has to do with my career. Thank you all.

  Thanks to Thomas & Mercer for believing in this manuscript. This is the fourth novel with the T&M team, and I couldn’t be happier with everything you’ve done for me and my career. Special thanks to Charlotte Herscher, developmental editor. She’s edited all my novels. This one was challenging, and she patiently allowed me to work some things through. Thanks also to Elizabeth Johnson, copy editor. I asked for the best, grammar and punctuation not being my strength, and they immediately recommended Elizabeth. She pushes me on just about every sentence and word choice, and the books are infinitely more accurate.

  Thanks to Jacque BenZekry, then in marketing, who is a true force of nature and does an incredible job promoting my novels. Your efforts pushed me to number one, and I hope we can light that number again. Thanks to Tiffany Pokorny and Sarah Shaw in author relations for always going the extra step to make me feel appreciated. My family has become a big fan of Thomas & Mercer for all the terrific gifts and little acknowledgments you send. You are the best. Thanks to my publicist, Dennelle Catlett, for promoting me and my work. Thanks to my former publicist and new editor, Gracie Doyle. She works tirelessly to help me improve my work and find the next great story. Thanks to Kjersti Egerdahl, acquisitions editor, and Sean Baker, production manager. Sean, your covers are the bomb! Thanks to publisher Mikyla Bruder, associate publisher Hai-Yen Mura, and Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing. These people all walk the walk when it comes to their authors and their authors’ work, and each has helped me quickly to feel at home.

  Special thanks to Thomas & Mercer’s former editorial director, Alan Turkus, for his guidance, spot-on editorial advice, and friendship. By the time The 7th Canon is published, Alan will be settled in Minnesota working on his own novels, and I sincerely hope you light the #1 sign at Thomas & Mercer.

  Thanks to Tami Taylor, who runs my website, creates my foreign-language book covers, creates my newsletter, and otherwise does a fantastic job. Thanks to Sean McVeigh at 425 Media for his help with all my social-media needs. You’re both a lot smarter than I am, and I’m glad to have you on my team. Thanks to Pam Binder and the Pacific Northwest Writers Association for their tremendous support of my work.

  Thank you also to the loyal readers who write to tell me how much they enjoy my books and await the next. You are the reason I keep looking for the next great story.

  Thanks to Joe and Catherine and to my wife, Cristina. After eleven novels, you know I couldn’t do this without you three. You know how much I love you all and how proud I am of both our children.

  Thanks to my mother, Patty Dugoni. You’ve always been my inspiration. When things get tough, I think of you, raising ten kids, going back to school at forty, starting your own accounting business, and forty-three years later still going to work at your own business. Remarkable. At eighty-three, my mother attends
writers’ conferences with me, and by the second day, everyone is talking about how wonderful she is. They’re right. Love you, Ma.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2014 Catherine Dugoni

  Robert Dugoni is the author of the bestselling Tracy Crosswhite series (My Sister’s Grave, Her Final Breath, and In the Clearing) as well as the critically acclaimed David Sloane series (The Jury Master, Wrongful Death, Bodily Harm, Murder One, and The Conviction). He’s been ranked number one on Amazon’s list of most popular authors in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, and Italy, and he has been a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon bestseller multiple times. Dugoni was nominated twice for the Harper Lee Award for Legal Fiction and for the International Thriller Award. My Sister’s Grave won the 2015 Nancy Pearl Award for Fiction and was named one of the best thrillers of 2014 by Library Journal and Suspense Magazine. Dugoni’s nonfiction exposé, The Cyanide Canary, was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and the Providence Journal referred to him as “the undisputed king of the legal thriller” and “heir to Grisham’s literary throne.” Visit his website at www.robertdugoni.com, e-mail him at [email protected], and follow him on Twitter at @robertdugoni and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AuthorRobertDugoni.

 

 

 


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