"Play Dead"

Ryan Brown is an actor who has starred on the daytime dramas Guiding Light and The Young and The Restless, and has appeared on Law & Order as well as in feature films for Lifetime Television.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Play Dead, his debut novel, and reported the following:

Play Dead is part sports satire, part horror-comedy, and tells the story of a Texas high school football team that dies tragically and returns from the dead as zombies to play a game in which the stakes are even higher than life or death. Of course, the demise of the team wasn't necessarily accidental, and might have had something to do with their vicious district rivals. And in this story, the zombies are the good guys - the team to pull for.

Page 69 of the book is actually part of a pivotal scene in the story. It depicts the beginning of a face-off between the story's hero, quarterback Cole Logan, and his head coach. The scene takes place in the coach's cramped office, only hours after Cole has suffered a brutal attack from an unknown assailant, which resulted in the loss of two of his fingers. The big game is only hours away. Cole, playing for much more than just victory, is adamant to play despite his injuries. His coach, who has a tragic history with regards to the safety and well being of his players, is reluctant to allow Cole to take the field. On page 69, the reader senses that both men are about to come to a head, and rather explosively!

Read an excerpt from Play Dead, and learn more about the book and author at Ryan Brown's website.

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

--Marshal Zeringue