"Dark Men"

Derek Haas is the author of the bestselling novel The Silver Bear. He also co-wrote the screenplays for 3:10 to Yuma, starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, and Wanted, starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, and Angelina Jolie. His forthcoming film, The Double, starring Richard Gere and Topher Grace, is directed by his screenwriting partner Michael Brandt and will be released in 2011.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Dark Men, and reported the following:

The 69th page, eh? Good choice! For my three books, I have the same first-person narrator, a contract killer known as Columbus. But in the course of the books, other characters tell stories at times, and on the 69th page of Dark Men, a character named Smoke tells the story of his time in prison. I love to tell stories within stories… been fascinated with the idea since reading the Canterbury Tales in college, where Chaucer would have a story within a story within a story within a story. It gives me a chance to throw a different voice at the reader, and I think Smoke's tale is quite entertaining.

Learn more about Dark Men at Derek Haas's website.

My Book, The Movie: Dark Men.

Writers Read: Derek Haas.

--Marshal Zeringue