"Crime of Fashion"

José Latour is one of the Spanish-speaking world’s top crime-fiction writers and is a former vice-president of the International Association of Crime Writers. In 2002, he left Cuba for Spain, and immigrated to Canada in the fall of 2004.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Crime of Fashion, and reported the following:

In Crime of Fashion’s page 69 there is a brief reflection on the fashion industry by a former model and an even briefer phone call that she makes while on the way to a fashion show. Fashionistas won’t find revelations or new information about that business in that page.

However, crime fiction readers who are not familiar with fashion learn more about the character there, and how her take on the world of fashion has evolved over the years.

I don’t think that a person who limits his reading to page 69 would be interested in reading on. That page provides no indication of the crimes that will be committed, nor the rest of a rather complicated plot in which some are murdered by an unanticipated killer.

Concerning the Page 69 Test blog, I would like to give an opinion, if I may. Trying to guess how well or badly written a book is — or how interesting or boring the story is — just by reading a single page compares to deciding on whether or not to watch a painting or a sculpture by examining one square inch at its center.

Browse inside Crime of Fashion, and learn more about the book and author at José Latour's website.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue