"Over the Edge"

Kathleen Bryant inherited a love of travel from her parents, who bundled her up for her first road trip when she was only six months old. Originally a Midwestern farm girl, she’s spent the past decades thawing out in the West, hiking its deserts and mountains, bouncing along backcountry roads, and sometimes lending a hand at archaeological sites. After writing numerous travel guides and magazine articles about Sedona, Grand Canyon, and the Four Corners, she’s returned to her first love, writing novels. Today, Bryant lives with her musician husband in California, where she continues to seek out new adventures, finding them on hiking trails, at farmers markets, and in the pages of a good book.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Over the Edge, and reported the following:

A reader opening Over the Edge to page 69 would land in the middle of a conversation between two key characters, Jeep guide Del Cooper and Ryan Driscoll, a Forest Service law enforcement officer. The browser test is only partly successful, with hints and misses.

To summarize, on page 69, Del has left work to find Ryan waiting for her outside. They discuss a specific angle of the case, the possibility that Franklin was dealing drugs. She tells Ryan she saw Franklin hand something to the landowner during a heated encounter at a party.

Ryan counters that his main concern is fire danger, especially near homeless encampments on tinder-dry Forest Service land. Franklin, a camper, may have hidden a meth lab somewhere on the forest and may have been selling drugs. Franklin’s companion Jane is in jail, but she’s a flawed witness, as well as a possible suspect.

A reader would need to flip back a few pages to catch up on key plot points: While guiding a tour in a remote canyon, Del found a dead body. Franklin, the victim, was murdered. Two days before her gruesome discovery, Del attended a party celebrating a proposed Forest Service land trade. Once the trade is finalized, the ranch owner and a local developer stand to gain millions.

By page 69, Del has already begun to wonder if Franklin knew something about the trade—knowledge that got him killed. Flipping ahead to page 70, the reader might also pick up on the attraction between Del and Ryan, who was her teenage crush.

But flipping pages back and forth would be cheating, right? Who does that?

Are the clues on page 69 enough to guess the end of the story? Or will readers, like Del, begin to suspect everyone after her witnesses go missing and rumors swirl faster than Sedona’s famed vortexes?

Visit Kathleen Bryant's website.

My Book, The Movie: Over the Edge.

Q&A with Kathleen Bryant.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Man in the Water"

A past President of the Private Eye Writers of America, David Housewright won a prestigious Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America and three Minnesota Book Awards for his Rushmore McKenzie and Holland Taylor private eye novels as well as other tales of murder and mayhem in the Midwest.

His new novel is Man in the Water: A McKenzie Novel.

Housewright applied the Page 69 Test to Man in the Water and reported the following::

It turns out that the Page 69 Test works very well in giving the reader an understanding of what my new book is about.

That’s because this is exact part of the book where the protagonist, an unlicensed private investigator named McKenzie, agrees to help Nevaeh, the daughter of Man in the Water – it comes at the end of Chapter Four.

It begins with a warning: “Something else, and this is important – you might not like what I discover. You might learn things you’ll wish you didn’t know. Have you thought of that?”

The page also suggests that Nevaeh’s stepmother and her lawyer might be involved in the death of her father.

“I need you to call the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office. I don’t have the number, but you can probably find it on their website. I want you to call and ask them to send you a complete copy of your father’s autopsy report. I can’t do it myself because I’m not a family member.”

“Bizzy’s lawyer has a copy; I know he does.”

“Let’s not involve either of them for now. We don’t want them getting in the way.”

Nevaeh paused again.

“If my stepmother…” she said.

And it offers a brief insight into the character of McKenzie.

“It’ll be our little secret,” Nevaeh told me.

Secrets, my inner voice said. As if you don’t have enough already.

So, yeah. I’ve taken the Page 69 Test for several other of my novels and the results weren’t that spectacular. But for Man in the Water it works just fine.

Learn more about the book and author at David Housewright's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: The Last Kind Word.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Kind Word.

The Page 69 Test: Stealing the Countess.

The Page 69 Test: What the Dead Leave Behind.

The Page 69 Test: First, Kill the Lawyers.

The Page 69 Test: In a Hard Wind.

Q&A with David Housewright.

Writers Read: David Housewright.

--Marshal Zeringue