"The Trust"

Norb Vonnegut is a professional wealth adviser turned novelist. His books include Top Producer and The Gods of Greenwich.

Vonnegut applied the Page 69 Test to his latest novel, The Trust, and reported the following:

When I turn my iPad to the side, the pagination all changes as the view shifts from portrait to landscape. Are e-readers distorting results from the page-69 test?

For the sake of consistency with my previous posts on this blog, I'm using my hardcover copy of The Trust. And I'm pleased to report that page 69 is consistent with an experience that Janet Maslin of The New York Times describes as "money-porn beach reading." She adds, "Mr. Vonnegut dreams up diabolically elegant business crimes, then sends smart-talking characters to follow the money."

Here's the paragraph from page 69, which best illustrates Grove O'Rourke—the edgy, recurring hero in my fiction:

Sort of. Annie and I had planned a Saturday night out with her graduate school buddies, which meant I'd pay for everyone. They'd eat. They'd drink. And they'd disappear into the bathroom when the check arrived, leaving me to do the gracious thing and pay the bill because I'm the only one with a job. Bar flight is a form of behavioral entitlement that makes my skin crawl. If you ask me, there's a special place in hell for NYC's dinner deadbeats.

Learn more about the book and author at Norb Vonnegut's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Top Producer.

The Page 69 Test: The Gods of Greenwich.

--Marshal Zeringue