She applied the Page 69 Test to the mass market edition of Fan Mail, now available in the US, and reported the following:
In Fan Mail, Sophie is working a case where fiction has become fatal. A popular crime writer is murdered and posed just like the crime scene in the dead author’s last book. Death is imitating art, but who’s pulling the strings?Read an excerpt from Fan Mail, and learn more about the book and author at P. D. Martin's website, blog, and Facebook page.
Page 69 is a pretty good representation of the book, because it heralds the arrival of my main character, Aussie FBI profiler Sophie Anderson, at the crime scene. This is how p.69, and chapter 4, starts:
"There’s more than the usual crime-scene circus outside Black’s house. The road, sidewalk and nearby driveways are littered with cars and media vans. There’s always press, but not like this…"
However, you don’t get a sample of one of the things I enjoyed most about writing Fan Mail, and that’s the short snippets of the fictional authors’ works. This gave me a chance to write in a completely different style, voice and character, within the framework of a Sophie book. Which was a lot of fun!
Fan Mail is the third book featuring Sophie – an ex-police officer from Australia who now works for the FBI as a profiler. She also experiences nightmares and waking flashes about her cases that often come true.
I’d describe all my books – Body Count, The Murderers’ Club and Fan Mail – as fast-paced police/FBI procedurals with lots of forensic and criminal psychology details, plus an Aussie perspective on the US.
The Page 69 Test: The Murderers' Club.
Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.
--Marshal Zeringue
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