"The Brink of Fame"

It's 1913 in Irene Fleming's new novel, The Brink of Fame, and Emily Daggett Weiss is left stranded and destitute. Film tycoon Carl Laemmle comes to her rescue with a job offer directing a film in Hollywood, provided she can track down and bring back Laemmle’s own missing star actor....

Fleming applied the Page 69 Test to The Brink of Fame and reported the following:

On page 69 of The Brink of Fame, we meet Boris Levin, a Russian method actor whom we've not seen since the other book, The Edge of Ruin, where he was hanging out in a Greenwich Village coffee house looking for work with Melpomene Studios. He is not a major character in The Brink of Fame, but one of a number of people who know things about the star Emily has been hired to find. Emily admires his looks and his acting abilities; as a director, she believes he should have a career in the movies.

Boris is still looking for work in the movies, but at present he is working as a live-in yard man for Ross McHenry, the missing movie star. Emily discovers Levin clipping the star's hedge. She reminds him of their previous acquaintance...

"Are you still acting?"

"As well to ask if I'm still breathing. Unhappily I have no work of that sort."

"You're working here. For Mr....?"

"McHenry. Yes." He brushed a lock of dark hair out of his eyes with the back of his arm.

"What do you think of him?"

"I think he is rotten bastard. Forgive me."

... And so we now know that McHenry is not universally admired, that indeed he may be said to have enemies. Soon we will discover that he is dead.

Learn more about the book and author at Irene Fleming's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Edge of Ruin.

My Book, The Movie: The Brink of Fame.

Writers Read: Irene Fleming.

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

--Marshal Zeringue