The Page 69 Test: "The Deadliest Sin"

Monday, December 6, 2021

"The Deadliest Sin"

Jeri Westerson was born and raised in Los Angeles. As well as the Crispin Guest medieval mysteries, she is the author of a paranormal urban fantasy series and several

historical novels. Her books have been nominated for the Shamus, the Macavity and the Agatha awards.

Westerson applied the Page 69 Test to The Deadliest Sin, the latest -- and final -- Crispin Guest mystery, and reported the following:

From page 69:
It didn’t seem necessary. Though it stung a bit that Geoffrey hadn’t mentioned seeing him. He was beginning to feel invisible again, as he had in the beginning. ‘Nevertheless, I am glad you were so situated. And doing well, I hope.’

‘I am one of the king’s household knights. And I should have been with the king’s army in Ireland but his majesty preferred I stayed in London.’ He raised his eyes to Crispin when he asked quietly, ‘Have you heard that the upstart Hereford has returned illegally to the realm?’

Crispin bristled. Edward seemed to have hardened himself against Lancaster after the scandal. Perhaps it had been for the best. Being the squire to a traitor surely did not open doors for him as it otherwise might have had Crispin never gotten involved in the scandal. Edward had poured his hopes into the king, and how could Crispin blame him? ‘I…had heard something of the kind.’

‘Forgive me. I know how close you had been to Lancaster and his ilk.’

‘I helped to raise his ilk, as you call it. Henry Lancaster has been fair to me.’ The sword hanging from his hip told him so. Henry had given it to Crispin, incised it with the words ‘he has the right.’

‘I…I mean no disrespect Sir…M-Master Crispin. You must know that.’

He wiped the frown from his face and offered a gentle smile instead. ‘I do, Edward.’ He ticked his head. ‘I can’t quite get over the sight of you. You look like a man.’

He chuckled. ‘I am a man, sir. Have been for some years.’

‘Of course you have been. I sometimes feel suspended in amber whilst the world changes around me.’

‘And I have a wife and children.’

‘Do you now? That is good news.’

‘And you, sir? Are you…married to some gentlewoman?’

It was just then that Phillipa, dressed as a nun, but looking disturbingly fetching, crossed his path in the distance, speaking to Christopher in a covert manner. The sight of her, as it always seemed to do, froze him to the spot. As she turned, she caught sight of him and a smile passed over her face and her sleepy eyes took him in as she made a slight bow with her head, and went onward on the path to whatever business she intended.

‘Master Crispin?’
There’s much in this excerpt that gives a hint as to what is to come and what has passed before. The “Edward” that Crispin is talking to is his former squire that readers have never met before through the fourteen previous books. Because Crispin was banished from court some twenty years ago, a few of his past acquaintances have shown up in the books. Edward is the boy he had trained, the boy he had trusted is now a man, and formed by Crispin’s treason and dispossession. Luckily, he was taken in by another lord—Geoffrey Chaucer, as it happens, one of Crispin’s old friends—trained, and became a knight himself.

And then, by the last paragraph, we see that Philippa, his longtime love—dressed as a nun!—and his bastard son Christopher, are also somehow in the story of murder and intrigue.

Edward serves to breach the line between Crispin’s past and his present, someone who was an important part of his past and comes into play again as the tides turn for King Richard. So it is a good excerpt to represent the book, but only if you get to the whole book.