"Bye, Bye Love"

Three sisters with an insatiable love for mysteries, write the PI Cat DeLuca novels as KJ Larsen. Julianne, Kari, and Kristen Larsen live in Chicagoland and the Pacific Northwest where they’re working on Cat’s fifth and most outrageous adventure.

They applied the Page 69 Test to their latest novel, Bye, Bye Love, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Cleo flashed her coat open exposing the Glock in her shoulder holster. Then she hiked up her skirt to show off the .22 in her garter holster. She started unbuttoning her blouse and I threw up my hands.

“Gotcha.”

Geesh.

Cleo frowned. “Who the hell is Toby Smoak?”

“Rolex man.”

Her face shone with unabashed admiration. “You found him?”

“Oh yeah, baby.”

“Damn, girl. You got Captain Bob eating some serious crow.”

“Well, not exactly.”

“So where is this Smoak? Does Bobby got a SWAT team surrounding his rathole?”

“The SWAT team is you and me. And Max, if Tino has his way.”

“Huh? I feel like I’m missing something here.”

I climbed back on my soapbox. “Captain Bob was a jerk. He has dissed the Pants On Fire Detective Agency for the last time.”

She feigned shock. “Bob? No! Go on!”

“We’re doin’ this on our own, girlfriend. Without Captain Bob and without the Ninth. It’s you and me. And Inga, if Mama let’s me have her back.”

“Oh yeah. You’re a force to be reckoned with.”

“Here’s the plan. We bring Smoak in and toss him on Captain Bob’s desk like a sack of donuts. We take Provenza down. And when we’re finished, Captain Bob will have to admit he’s a dumbass.”

The Pants On Fire Detective Agency has a reputation for catching cheaters. It’s a skill PI Cat DeLuca mastered when married to her run-around ex, Johnnie Rizzo. Armed with a camera, Cat scales balconies, dangles from hotel windows, and splashes the bare facts on 8X10 glossies. They tend to sweeten a client’s divorce settlement.

Cat is a smart, hotshot detective who gets little respect from the Chicago Police Department. So when Cat stumbles over a faceless body in the park, and it disappears before the cops arrive, it’s not surprising Captain Bob blows her claim off as a bad prank.

In Bye, Bye Love, PI Cat DeLuca is hot on the trail of a body snatcher. Page 69 cuts to a conversation between the detective and her trigger-happy assistant, Cleo Jones. The night Cat stumbled over a body in the park, she and her beagle/partner, Inga, were assaulted. On page 69, Cat reveals the identity of the assailant and announces she’s going rogue. There’s also a reference to Cat’s interfering, Italian Mama. Mama blames Cat for Inga’s injury and has kidnapped her grand-dog.

Happily, I’d say this page represents Bye, Bye Love quite well and seems to pass the Page 69 Test!

Visit K. J. Larsen's website.

Writers Read: K. J. Larsen.

--Marshal Zeringue