Roast Mortem

Afterword

Although the firefighters of New York City use plenty of specialized equipment in the course of their hazardous and heroic work, including personal escape ropes, the spike device in this novel is not one of them. As mentioned in the acknowledgments, however, a very real incident did inspire the creation of this plotline.

On January 23, 2005 (a day known in the FDNY as “Black Sunday”), two members of the department lost their lives in the line of duty — and four more were very badly injured — because they did not have escape ropes. After that terrible day, the FDNY changed its policies and now provides high-heat resistant ropes to their firefighters.

This true, tragic incident left a lasting impression on me and my husband as we began to consider how the life and death of any firefighter may hinge on something as simple as possessing a single piece of reliable equipment.

Like the spike device we invented, the charity in this book is a fictional creation, but there is a very real firefighters’ charity that I’m pleased to tell you about right now.

The Terry Farrell Firefighters Fund is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing firefighters and their families with financial assistance for their educational, medical, and equipment needs. This charity was formed in honor of Terry Farrell, a decorated firefighter with FDNY Rescue 4 who perished on September 11, 2001, while fighting fires and rescuing victims at the World Trade Center.

Originally based in New York, this charity is currently expanding with chapters in other areas of the country. To find out more about the Terry Farrell Firefighters Fund, including how you can help simply by buying a specially labeled bottle of Jim Beam bourbon or purchasing a California Firehouse Cookbook, visit the fund’s Web site at www.terryfarrellfund.org