"Never Laugh as a Hearse Goes By"

Elizabeth J. Duncan is a winner of the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition. She was shortlisted for the Agatha and Arthur Ellis Awards.

Duncan applied the Page 69 Test to Never Laugh as a Hearse Goes By, the fifth novel in the Penny Brannigan series, and reported the following:

Page 69 finds us at the opening of Chapter 12 in Never Laugh as a Hearse Goes By. It’s only half a page, so this will be proportionally brief!

We join Bishop Michael Blaine in progress as he wraps up the morning session of a clerical conference being held at the stunningly beautiful Gladstone’s Library in North Wales. His secretary, Minty Russell, laughs to herself as he promotes the idea of a modern Church in Wales taking a strong, supportive stand on the role of women clergy.

This progressive thinking from the man who treated his own wife with such cold disdain and didn’t think her capable of doing much of anything.

In this brief passage we see the bishop through Minty’s unsympathetic eyes. The group breaks up and the bishop reminds everyone that lunch is at 1 p.m. Keep reading! Someone has a lunch date with death!

Visit Elizabeth J. Duncan's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Cold Light of Mourning.

The Page 69 Test: A Brush with Death.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Elizabeth J. Duncan and Dolly.

Writers Read: Elizabeth J. Duncan (January 2013).

--Marshal Zeringue