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Lisa Scottoline

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Don't Go Kindle Edition

by Lisa Scottoline (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 4,352 ratings

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Lisa Scottoline has thrilled millions with her emotionally-charged novels that feature strong women exploring the boundaries of family, justice, and love.

In her New York Times bestseller, Don't Go, she breaks new ground and delivers the story of a soldier who discovers what it means to be a man, a father, and ultimately, a hero.

When Dr. Mike Scanlon is called to serve as an army doctor in Afghanistan, he's acutely aware of the dangers he'll face and the hardships it will cause his wife Chloe and newborn baby. And deep inside, he doesn't think of himself as a warrior, but a healer.

However, in an ironic turn of events, as Mike operates on a wounded soldier in a war-torn country, Chloe dies at home in the suburbs, in an apparent household accident. Devastated, he returns home to bury her, only to discover that the life he left behind has fallen apart. His medical practice is in jeopardy, and he is a complete stranger to the only family he has left - his precious baby girl. Worse, he learns a shocking secret that sends him into a downward spiral.

Ultimately, Mike realizes that the most important battle of his life faces him on the home front and he'll have to put it all on the line to save what's dearest to him – his family. Gripping, thrilling, and profoundly emotional, Don't Go is Lisa Scottoline at her finest.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Writing for the first time from a male perspective, Scottoline tackles a number of heavy issues in this story of a soldier returning from Afghanistan who is forced to deal with even more dire crises on the home front. Mike Scanlon finds his skills as a podiatric surgeon in increasing demand in Afghanistan as a result of the proliferation of IEDs and feels grateful to be able to help so many wounded soldiers. Then he learns his wife has died as the result of a freak household accident, leaving their newborn baby girl without a mother. Overwhelmed, he agrees to let his sister-in-law and her husband take over parenting duties, and re-ups for another tour. But a devastating injury sends him home once again, where he learns a shocking secret about his wife, one that presents the possibility that her death was not an accident. Although this novel feels, at times, overstuffed with issues and superficial in its treatment of PTSD, it will no doubt find a ready audience among Scottoline’s enormous fan base. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Best-selling Scottoline’s hugely popular Rosato & Associates series as well as the success of her recent stand-alone titles guarantee an audience for this one. --Joanne Wilkinson

Review

Lisa Scottoline is one of the very best writers at work today. Don't Go proves it once again. This is a story that is heavily muscled, emotional, and relevant. They don't come any better. (Michael Connelly)

About the Author

LISA SCOTTOLINE is the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author of the Rosato & DiNunzio series, as well as One Perfect Lie, Most Wanted, and many others. She has 30 million copies of her books in print in the United States, she has been published in thirty-five countries, and her thrillers have been optioned for television and film. Lisa also writes a weekly column with her daughter, Francesca Serritella, for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and those critically acclaimed stories have been adapted into a series of memoirs, the first of which is entitled Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog. She lives in the Philadelphia area.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Don't Go

By Lisa Scottoline

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2014 Lisa Scottoline
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-250-01008-7

Excerpt

Chapter One

Chloe woke up on the floor, her thoughts foggy. She must have fallen and knocked herself out when she hit the hardwood. She started to get up, but felt dizzy and eased back down. The kitchen was dark except for pinpoints of light on the coffeemaker, TV, and cable box, like a suburban constellation.
She tried to understand how long she’d been lying here. The last thing she remembered, she was rinsing the dishes after lunch, eyeing the sun through the window, like a big, fresh shiny yolk in the sky. Yellow was her favorite color, and she always tried to get it into her painting. Chloe used to teach art in middle school, but now she was a new mom with no time to shower, much less paint.
She heard a mechanical ca-thunk, and the Christmas lights went on outside. Red, green, and blue glimmered on the wetness underneath her, which seemed to be spreading. Her gaze traveled to its edge, where her Maine Coon, Jake, sat in silhouette under the table, his ears translucent triangles, backlit by the multicolored lights.
Chloe reached for a chair to pull herself up, but was oddly weak and slumped to the floor. She felt cold, though the kitchen had a southern exposure and stayed warm, even in winter. She needed help, but was alone. Her sister Danielle and her brother-in-law Bob had come over for lunch, then Danielle had taken the baby Christmas shopping and Bob had gone to work. They didn’t have children, and Danielle had been happy to take Emily to the mall by herself.
We can pick out Christmas presents for you and Mike!
Chloe closed her eyes, wishing her husband Mike were here, but he was a reservist in the Army Medical Corps, serving in Afghanistan. He’d be home in a month, and she was counting the days. She’d prayed he wouldn’t be called up because he was thirty-six years old, and when the deployment orders came, she’d taken it badly. She’d simply dissolved into tears, whether from sleep deprivation, crazed hormones, or worry.
Mike, please, I’m begging you. Don’t go.
Suddenly Chloe realized something. The Christmas lights were controlled by a timer that turned them on at five o’clock, which meant Bob and Danielle would be back at any minute. She had to hide the vodka she’d left out on the counter. Nobody could know about her drinking, especially not Danielle. Chloe should have been more careful, but she was a beginner alcoholic.
She reached for the chair and hoisted herself up partway. The kitchen whirled, a mad blur of Christmas lights. She clung to the chair, feeling dizzy, cold, and spacey, as if she were floating on a frigid river. Her hand slipped, and the chair wobbled. Jake sprang backwards, then resettled into a crouch.
She put her hands on the floor to lift her chest up, like a push-up, but the wetness was everywhere. Under her hands, between her fingers, soaking her shirt. It didn’t smell like vodka. The fog in her brain cleared, and Chloe remembered she’d been loading the dishwasher, and the chef’s knife had slipped, slicing the underside of her arm. Bright red blood had spurted from the wound, and she’d fainted. She always fainted at the sight of blood, and Mike used to kid her.
The doctor’s wife, who’s afraid of blood.
Chloe looked at her left arm in horror. It was covered with blood, reflecting the holiday lights. Blood. Her mouth went dry. She’d been bleeding all afternoon. She could bleed to death.
“Help!” she called out, but her voice sounded far away. She had to get to her cell phone and call 911. She dragged herself through the slippery blood to the base cabinet, clawed the door for the handle, and grabbed it on the second try. She tried to pull herself up but had no strength left. She clung to the handle.
Chloe spotted her laptop to her right, on its side. She must have knocked it off the counter when she fell. Her best friend Sara was always online, and Chloe could g-chat her for help. She slid the laptop toward her and hit the keys with a slick palm, but the monitor didn’t light up. She didn’t know if it was off or broken.
She shoved it aside, getting a better idea. She would crawl to the front door and out to the sidewalk. The neighbors or someone driving by would see her. She started crawling, her breath ragged. The front door lay directly down the hall, behind a solid expanse of hardwood and an area rug. She dragged herself toward it, smearing blood across the kitchen threshold.
Hope surged in her chest. Her arms ached but they kept churning. She pulled herself into the hallway. She kept her eye on the front door. It had a window on the top half, and she could see the Christmas lights on the porch. She had put them up herself, for Emily’s first Christmas.
The door lay thirty feet ahead, but Chloe felt her legs begin to weaken. Her arms were failing, but she couldn’t give up. She was a mother. She had a precious baby, only seven months old.
Chloe moved forward on her elbows, but more slowly, like a car running out of gas. Still she kept going. The front door was only fifteen feet away. Then thirteen, then ten. She had to make it.
Go, go, go. Nine, eight, seven feet left.
Chloe reached the edge of the area rug, but couldn’t go another inch. Her forehead dropped to the soft wool. Her body flattened. Her eyes closed as if they were sealed. She felt her life ebb away, borne off in a sea of her own blood. Suddenly she heard a noise, outside the house. A car was pulling into the driveway, its engine thrumming.
Thank God!
She heard the sound of a car door opening and closing, then footsteps on the driveway. They were slow because the driveway was icy in patches, the rock salt melting it unevenly.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Chloe remembered the front door was unlocked, a lucky break. She was supposed to lock it behind Danielle, who had been carrying Emily, the diaper bag, and her purse, but she had forgotten. It would serve her well, now. Whoever was coming could see her through the window, rush in, and call 911.
The footsteps drew closer to the door, but Chloe didn’t recognize them. She didn’t know Bob or Danielle by their footstep. It could be anybody.
Please God hurry
The footsteps reached the front door, and Chloe heard the mechanical turning of the doorknob. The door unlatched, and she felt a vacuum as it swung open. Frigid air blasted her from the open doorway. Her hair blew into her face, but she couldn’t even open her eyes.
Help me help me call 911
She heard the footsteps walk to her, then stop near her head. But whoever it was didn’t call her name, rush to her side, or cry out in alarm.
What is going on why aren’t you calling 911
She heard the footsteps walk back to the door.
Wait don’t go please help me
She heard the sound of the front door closing.
No come back please help I’m—
The latch engaged with a quiet click.

Copyright © 2013 by Smart Blonde, LLC

(Continues...)Excerpted from Don't Go by Lisa Scottoline. Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Scottoline. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B008BU6THE
Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Press; Reprint edition (April 9, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 9, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2211 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 385 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #320,174 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #916 in Political Thrillers & Suspense
- #1,402 in Terrorism Thrillers (Books)
- #2,329 in Military Thrillers (Books)

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4.2 4,352 ratings

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Lisa Scottoline

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Lisa Scottoline is a #1 bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author of 33 novels. Lisa's books are book-club favorites, and she and her daughter Francesca Serritella have hosted an annual Big Book Club Party for over a thousand readers at her Pennsylvania farm, for the past twelve years. Lisa has been President of Mystery Writers of America and she reviews fiction and non-fiction for the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She also writes a weekly column with her daughter for The Philadelphia Inquirer entitled Chick Wit, a witty take on life from a woman’s perspective, which have been collected in a bestselling series of humorous memoirs. Lisa graduated magna cum laude in three years from the University of Pennsylvania, with a B.A. degree in English, and cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she taught Justice & Fiction. She has over 30 million copies of her books in print and is published in over 35 countries. She lives with an array of disobedient pets, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Michael M. Rosenblatt

Betrayal in war both abroad and home

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2023

Verified Purchase

This is the second time I read Lisa Scottoline’s brilliant and well researched book. She detailed the cruelty and evil of war and sometimes loss at the home front. I am a foot and ankle surgeon but never served in active war. Rather, I had my surgical training in a VA and Army hospital during the Vietnam War. But I was never under personal threat.

Dr. Brad Wenstrup, DPM, however actually served as a foot and ankle surgeon in Iraq and presently is a Congressional Representative for Ohio. He received military awards and honors (Bronze Star). I can disclose this here because it is also on his own public web site. Any war volunteer risks many possible outcomes, including the worst. There are no guarantees.

The rest of this review is spoiler alert:

I want to discuss one important scene, the turning point for Dr. Mike Scanlon, our protagonist: his life/death fight.

Dr. Mike was on his back after being decked by a heavy lamp. His only weapon was a small steak knife. But he was a surgeon and knew anatomy. I want to describe how he survived by cutting his opponent’s Achilles Tendon, shockingly outsmarting him.
After the transection of the Achilles Tendon, his fight for survival was essentially over. Lisa Scottoline described the scene with stunning drama.

You might think it was accomplished by a sawing motion over the Achilles’ tendon. Dr. Scanlon instead used a “surgical” approach. The Achilles’ Tendon insertion into the heel bone forms a “triangle.” The idea was to get “inside” the triangle BEHIND the tendon.

There is plenty of room to insert a steak knife; and there is also a vulnerable artery and nerve in the same space. His tiny weapon entered behind the tendon, unimpeded, like a hot knife through butter. Knowing the anatomy also allowed him to aim the blade to cut the artery and nerve just before the tendon. This was a life/death struggle, akin to war itself.

It is impossible to stand on a foot with a transected (cut) Achilles’ Tendon, not to mention the pain of the suddenly contracted Gastro-soleus complex. I loved how Lisa described this as a rolled-up “old fashioned window shade!” His adversary would have lost sensation on the bottom of his foot due to the cut posterior tibial nerve. His leg became a useless, dead weight with indescribable pain in the calf. (There is a medieval correlation among swordsman: “Coup de Jarnac”)

As Dr. Scanlon followed him back into the hallway, dragging a useless leg, he had other options. He wound up a “reverse golf-swing” to bring a fire poker down on the exposed tibia with a “crack” that would have been heard in the next room. The tibia is the bone that you run into a coffee table with in the dark: now a thru and thru, splintered fracture.

The author then described how his adversary screamed and collapsed, likely from shock and blood loss. Without knowledge of surgical anatomy Dr. Scanlon would not have survived. He had no choice.
I hope Lisa’s moving account of war underscores the vulnerability of those who also await their soldiers at home as well. And what our surgeons contribute to try to bring them home alive and reasonably intact. I hope you “enjoyed” the fight scene as much as I did.

Sadly, it is unlikely that Dr. Scanlon would be able to return to active practice. I owned and operated a Medicare Certified Surgical Center (about 66% surgery). Most of my patient contact was “two hands on.” I am reminded of the tragic loss of concert pianist Paul Wittgenstein’s right arm in WWI. After the War he encouraged some great composers (Ravel) to compose music he could play with only his left hand. He managed a kind of abbreviated concert life. But it was sadly not consequential.

We are also reminded of how much our soldiers can lose in the very real world of war injuries. And how much we OWE them. I cried real tears reading Lisa’s Scottoline’s moving accounts, even the second time.

Dr. Michael M. Rosenblatt, DPM

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Brenda R

TOO MUCH WAR STORY OTHERWISE GOOD

Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2015

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The first chapter will definitely grab you. A woman is bleeding out and dying on her kitchen floor. She struggles to get to the front door by pulling herself along. Someone unknown enters the home, sees her, and leaves.

The rest of the story is told from the point of view of her husband, Mike. He is a surgical podiatrist finishing his tour of duty in Afghanistan but will later rejoin for another year. Danielle, Chloe's sister, and her husband have taken care of the baby since Chloe's death and appear to be supportive. But Mike is always being told what to do or not do concerning his baby daughter. But everything is good or is it?

The police report and the autopsy report provide information that requires more investigation. When Mike looks over the post mortem results, he discovers that his wife was pregnant with another man's child. Dr. Mike's life just seems to go from bad to worse. His wife is dead, pregnant and is possibly a closet alcoholic. His baby screams bloody murder every time she sees him. His practice has been converted into a different practice. How much worse can it get?

This book had a good air of mystery to it as Mike tried to find out who his wife was having an affair with. What I didn't like about this book was starting at one point and then switching gears to a totally different point only to go back to the first point. It made the story feel disjointed to me. I felt it should have been either a story about a man losing his wife or a war story. The two together just didn't mesh in my opinion. Thus I will give it only 4 stars

9 people found this helpful

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Michael P. Richards

A "War Hero" journeys to become a Father

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2013

Verified Purchase

DON'T GO is one of the most powerful books I have read and is a testament to the writing skills of the talented LISA SCOTTOLINE, whose books I have been reading for years. In DON'T GO, Lisa brings us a "war hero" in Dr. Mike Scanlon, attempting to move forward from the pain of his wife's death, and his own mates from the tragic war in Afghanistan, and you are immediately brought into the world today of what it is like to be a soldier, father and husband, along with fighting the enemy in Afghanistan. What Lisa accomplishes in DON'T GO is to take us on a painful journey from Afghanistan to Philadelphia and the "rocky road" Dr. Scanlon must take to find/seek the truth about the death of his wife, but just as importantly, his own journey to become the man he has wanted for his daughter, Emily. Each page makes the reader want to bring Mike Scanlon finally home to not only himself, but to become the father he has always wanted to be for Emily. DON'T GO is a tribute to not only Lisa Scottoline, but to the men and women in uniform, like Dr. Mike Scanlon, that continue to fight a tragic war, and to be able to come home to the ones they love....I would love DON'T GO 2 to read about the life Mike builds for himself, Emily and Stephanie. Thank you, Lisa, for ALWAYS bringing "me home" to Philadelphia, which was where I grew up and loved.

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Top reviews from other countries

Kindle Customer

Highly recommended

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 2, 2017

Verified Purchase

Bit slow to start of with. But then hard to put down. Lots of twists. Highly recommended

saf

great

Reviewed in Canada on February 16, 2014

Verified Purchase

The author offered strong visuals. The characters became real and engaging. You got hints of what would be next and you wanted to keep reading but only to find out what you predicted wasn't quite right. You had to know the truth and it kept you engaged from start to finish. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone.

3 people found this helpful