Now and then, a character will speak out, sometimes willingly, other times under duress. This time, it’s the latter: the fictional Gloria Lamerino of the Periodic Table Mysteries is not wordy like her creator. Here she obliges the author who gave her life and tells us what that life is like.

From Gloria Lamerino

Ask me to put together a system to measure the spectral lines of hydrogen. I’ll be happy to oblige. I know where I can get the right laser and detection system.

But please don’t ask me to write an essay. Nothing makes me more nervous than that. I’m feeling that old classroom anxiety all over again. My college liberal arts teachers were always telling me my answers to questions were too short, not full enough, whatever that meant. In my major, mathematics, with a physics minor, an answer was an answer, no matter how few words or numbers it took.

But, to please my mentor, Camille Minichino, I’ve agreed to write about my life as a scientist and then, unexpectedly, as the partner of a homicide detective.

It all started when I decided to retire from my laboratory career in California and return home to Revere, Massachusetts. To ease the transition, Rose Galigani, my best friend from grade school, offered me an apartment above the funeral home she runs with her husband, Frank. It seemed like a good idea until I realized the challenge it would be to do my laundry—it so happens that the washer/dryer set shares the basement with the embalming room. I found a Laundromat downtown pretty quickly. I still had to master the trick of walking past their “clients” laid out in the first floor parlors, and the chemical smells that are only partially masked by elaborate floral arrangements.

Rose and I couldn’t be more close, or more different. I look more like the average woman from a chunky Italian-American family. Rose, with her auburn hair and petite figure looks like the Hollywood version. We even managed to stay close during my three decades in California, with frequent meetings on one coast or the other.

It was during one of those Christmas getaway weekends in Boston that I met Detective Matt Gennaro, a friend of the Galiganis, who is now my husband. Between then and now, we’ve had many adventures as I’ve been able to help him solve cases where science or scientists were involved.

There was the time one of my colleagues doing hydrogen research was murdered at his lab desk; and another when a congresswoman dealing with legislation on the United States helium reserves was the victim of a hit-and-run; and I recall helping solve the murder of a poor janitor working in a lithium battery facility; and then beryllium . . .  well, you get the picture. Selected covers are shown here.

As I’m writing this, I’m working on a case of magnesium poisoning at a spa, my 12^th case with Police Department the Revere. Matt just briefed me on the crime scene and the victim, a maid of honor in a bridal party.

How does one go from a physics researcher to an amateur detective? You might be surprised to learn that the training is not that different. Not that I’m skilled with weapons or forensics, but a physicist has to be a problem solver, look for clues, and find the culprit when an experiment is going wrong—a stray electromagnetic pulse? An unexpected thermal gradient?

Not so different from sifting through theories of a homicide, looking both inside and outside the box to solve the problem and capture a killer.

Look at me! I’ve come up with more than 500 words, not as painful as I thought.

Maybe my next career will be essay writing.