Lawson applied the Page 69 Test to Rosarito Beach and reported the following:Page 69 in the hardcover copy of Rosarito Beach is a “set-up” page. On this page I’m describing the actions being taken by U.S. marshals preparing to move a prisoner from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego to the Federal Courthouse, and in the following pages I have a group of gangbangers attack the marshals while they’re driving the prisoner from the jail to the courthouse in an attempt to free the prisoner. What’s probably most interesting about this is something I did in the book to change reality. In reality, federal prisoners in San Diego are moved from the federal lockup to the courthouse via a tunnel. Well, I didn’t want to use the tunnel. I thought the gangbanger attack on the marshals would be more dramatic if it took place outside, on the streets of the city - so I invented an earthquake. That is, I used a fictional earthquake that occurred a year before the scene takes place to damage the tunnel so it was under repair and couldn’t be used for prisoner transport. Is this what’s know as literary license? Beats me.Learn more about the author and his work at Mike Lawson's website.
Writers Read: M. A. Lawson.
--Marshal Zeringue
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