the Simon Fisk international thrillers, and the stand-alone courtroom drama The Rough Cut. Corleone’s debut novel, One Man’s Paradise, won the 2009 Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award and was a finalist for the 2011 Shamus Award for Best First Novel. A former New York City criminal defense attorney, Corleone now resides in Honolulu, where he is currently at work on his next novel.
He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Falls to Pieces, and reported the following:
In the ARC (Advance Reader’s Copy) of Falls to Pieces, page 69 contains only five lines since it ends a chapter. I thought I’d be writing about how the novel fails the test, but when I read the page, I realized it passes.Learn more about the book and author at Douglas Corleone's website.
The scene takes place in a lava tube (a natural cave formed by lava) just off the hiking trail at a Maui National Park, where Kati’s fiancé Eddie has gone missing. Kati and her fiancé’s law partner Noah are searching for a missing walking stick, which may hold the key to Eddie’s disappearance.
The page brings a satisfying conclusion to the suspense built up in the chapter, which would give a new reader a fair idea of the story. These few lines also raise a startling new question, urging the reader to ignore the clock and read one more chapter.
(Actually, the next chapter is in Kati’s daughter Zoe’s point of view, so readers are just going to have to read two. Tomorrow morning, we’ll all just need to grab an extra cup of coffee.)
The Page 69 Test: Good as Gone.
My Book, The Movie: Payoff.
The Page 69 Test: Gone Cold.
My Book, The Movie: Gone Cold.
Writers Read: Douglas Corleone (August 2015).
--Marshal Zeringue
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