The Page 69 Test: "Karma’s a Killer"

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

"Karma’s a Killer"

Tracy Weber is the author of the award-winning Downward Dog Mysteries series featuring yoga teacher Kate and her feisty German shepherd, Bella. Weber loves sharing her passion

for yoga and animals in any form possible. The third book in her series, Karma's a Killer, is out this month from Midnight Ink.

Weber and her husband live in Seattle with their challenging yet amazing German shepherd Tasha. When she’s not writing, the author spends her time teaching yoga, walking Tasha, and sipping Blackthorn cider at her favorite ale house.

Weber applied the Page 69 Test to Karma's a Killer and reported the following:

From page 69:
I pressed through the plastic sheeting covering the doorway and entered the living room. As Michael had promised, the living room and upstairs bedroom were mainly untouched by the construction. If you didn’t count the continual layer of dust that somehow seeped through the plastic or the Jenga-like piles of boxes, furniture, towels, and kitchen appliances stacked in every available space.

I pulled a bottle of Merlot from the wine rack, filled a semiclean glass with liquid tranquilizer, and chugged it down. Eight ounces of twelve-percent alcohol hit my stomach at the same time, leaving me warm and deliciously woozy. Another pour and two swallows later, I headed upstairs.

Michael snored softly on one side of the bed; Bella snored loudly on the other. I carefully wove my body between them, relishing their warmth and wondering, not for the first time, what I’d done to be lucky enough to deserve them. I laced my fingers through Michael’s, then rolled my back to him and wrapped my arms and legs around Bella. She groaned and leaned into my touch.

I lay there for at least a hundred years, trying not to think about Dharma, breathing in Bella’s sweet scent, and willing myself to fall asleep. I could only hope that sleep would allow my spirit to return to its source, as The Yoga Sutras teach, so that maybe, just maybe, I could find peace.
Page 69 brings us to the end of a scene in Karma’s a Killer that is both similar and dissimilar to the rest of the story. My protagonist, Kate, has just learned that her mother, Dharma—who abandoned her thirty years ago—is back in Seattle and wants to reconcile. Kate doesn’t yet know that Dharma is about to be arrested for murder.

This scene shows Kate’s internal struggles, which are an important part of the book, but it doesn’t show her normal self-deprecating humor or the suspense of the story. The most important things missing are her interactions with German shepherd, Bella, boyfriend, Michael, and friend Rene, the other primary characters in the series.