"Thieves Get Rich, Saints Get Shot"

Jodi Compton is the author of the acclaimed novels Hailey’s War, The 37th Hour, and Sympathy Between Humans.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Thieves Get Rich, Saints Get Shot, and reported the following:

Thieves Get Rich, Saints Get Shot is an identity-theft novel with a hard gangland edge, meaning it’s not about Internet-based identity theft, but the kind done with stolen ID cards and other documents, which are then sold on the black market. This is how Hailey Cain, my protagonist, is framed. On my website, you can read an excerpt that sets up the situation -- Hailey’s just found out someone committed two murders while using her identity. (To read this scene, just follow the link on the site’s home page).

On Page 69, we join Hailey and her ally, the mobster’s daughter Tess D’Agostino, at Tess’s home in Los Angeles. Hailey’s taken refuge there to figure out how it could be that her name and picture are all over the news as a murderer of two people -- one an off-duty cop -- in San Francisco, a city Hailey left at New Year’s and hasn’t returned to since. Essentially, this is where the plot gets rolling after an introductory segment called “A Day in the Life,” which is a “typical” day for the aimless, lawless Hailey Cain, who’s been working as a second-in-command to Serena “Warchild” Delgadillo, a rising Latina gangster Hailey knows from their youth in rural Southern California.

Tess and Hailey are just starting to unravel the theft of Hailey’s name and identity. The news from up north is all about the two shocking murders; so far, there’s been no mention of a financial crime. Tess, a businesswoman, raises that possibility:

“Well, this woman’s motives, when they come out, will be financial,” Tess said. It wasn’t a question.... “Within a day or two, the papers will be reporting irregularities in (the victim’s) accounts, check forgeries or large-amount withdrawals.”

“That’d be my guess.”

“Hmmm. ... The question is, why you? How did she choose you to impersonate?”

The why comes out of the plot of Hailey’s War, the preceding book, and Hailey begins to suspect as much not long after her conversation with Tess. From there, a hunt begins that concludes at high speeds on the highways of L.A. County, with Hailey literally chasing down the woman who stole the one thing Hailey still values: her good name.

Learn more about the book and author at Jodi Compton's website.

Writers Read: Jodi Compton.

The Page 69 Test: Hailey's War.

My Book, The Movie: Hailey's War.

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

--Marshal Zeringue