"Dangerous Play"

Elise Hart Kipness is a television sports reporter turned crime fiction writer. Like her main character, Kipness chased marquee athletes through the tunnels of Madison Square Garden and stood before glaring lights reporting to national audiences for Fox Sports Network.

Now as an author, Kipness fused her passion for true crime and sports with the Kate Green series. Her debut novel, Lights Out, is an Amazon bestseller and a Men’s Journal top 10 book of 2023.

Kipness applied the Page 69 Test to Dangerous Play, the second novel in the series, and reported the following:

I absolutely love to take the Page 69 Test. So, I was excited to see where it took me with Dangerous Play. For readers, this page is more a dip of the toe view of the book than a true example of the driving plot.

At the top of the page, the reader finds my main character, Kate Green, doubling down on her decision to investigate the murder of her former teammate from her days playing on the youth national soccer team. The roommate, Alexa Kane, was found dead at the Olympics the day before. Alexa’s someone Kate hadn’t seen in decades but shared secrets with that will now bubble up. But that's for another page!

Except for that initial reference, most of the text is about Kate’s family relationships, which are also complicated and part of the secondary plots in the book. Kate reaches out to her biological father, the NYPD detective heading up the taskforce on the murder. She’s balancing working with him, trusting him and investigating whether he’s been honest with her about the past. 

On page 69, the reader will also get a glimpse into Kate’s home. While she lives in the affluent suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut, Kate and her teenage twins reside in a small, historic modest house near town, which highlights the fact that Kate is an outsider in this uber wealthy enclave. 

The reader will also join Kate and her kids for breakfast. But these pancakes come with stilted conversation—as Kate detects her daughter, Nikki, is upset about something she’s not ready to share.

So while the reader won’t get a full picture of the murder and investigation that drives Dangerous Play, page 69 does give a nice slice of life view of Kate, her world and her demons.

Visit Elise Hart Kipness's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lights Out.

Q&A with Elise Hart Kipness.

--Marshal Zeringue