Michael Wiley teaches literature and writing at the University of North Florida. The Last Striptease, winner of the PWA/SMP “best first” prize, is his first mystery featuring Joe Kozmarski.Wiley applied the Page 69 Test to the novel and reported the following:
From Page 69:Read an excerpt from The Last Striptease, and learn more about the book and author at Michael Wiley's website.
[The scene: in a hospital in Chicago]
Eileen came back and her face had hope in it, though her eyes said she’d been crying. “He doesn’t look so bad,” she said. “He wants to see you, too.”
He had breathing tubes through his nose, tubes in his arms, tubes snaking under his medical gown. He looked like he could breathe underwater with no tanks, like he could crap without a toilet. Seeing him like that made me cry, too.
“Looking good,” I said.
The Last Striptease is a mystery novel with guts. In this scene, the guts are Chicago police detective Bill Gubman’s, and they’ve been spilled onto cold concrete in a late-night shooting.
But the guts are also his wife Eileen’s. She’s a minor character in the book, but her hopefulness and love are typical of the other characters. And, most of all, the guts are Joe Kozmarski’s. He’s the private detective who is the voice and the hero of The Last Striptease. He laughs and he wisecracks, but he feels deeply and hurts for his friends like Bill.
Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.
--Marshal Zeringue
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