"Fun City Heist"

Michael Kardos is the author of the novels Fun City Heist, Bluff, Before He Finds Her, and The Three-Day Affair. His story collection One Last Good Time won the Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Award for fiction, and his book The Art and Craft of Fiction: A Writer’s Guide is taught at colleges and universities across the country. Kardos's short stories have appeared in One Story, The Southern Review, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and many other magazines and anthologies, and have won two Pushcart Prizes.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Fun City Heist and reported the following:

At one time, Mo Melnick was a half-successful musician, but these days he rents beach chairs and umbrellas for a living. By page 69, Mo is on board to commit a felony with his old band. They have this idea that they can pull a heist—robbing the beachfron amusement park where they’ve booked a gig—during the gig itself. A perfect alibi.

On page 69, while down on the beach doing his day job, Mo is approached by the woman he saved from drowning in the openingchapter. Turns out she’s quite pretty, and she offers to repay him (for saving her life) by taking him to dinner. She hands him her business card, at which point Mo learns that a) she’s a detective with the town’s police department and b) she’s already run a background check on him.

Here’s how the chapter ends:

“I had to make sure you weren’t a serial killer before I asked you to dinner,” she explains.

I stare at the card some more. “You’re a detective?”

“Don’t worry—your record is squeaky clean.”

“It is,” I tell her, feeling the sudden urge to sit down. “I’m totally law abiding.”

She laughs a high C-sharp. “I can tell cops make you nervous. Don’t worry. I’m used to it. Unless you have reason to be nervous.” Her eyes narrow. “Do you have a reason to be nervous?” After a long beat, she smiles. “I’m kidding,” she says. “Cop humor.”

My heart can’t take this. Death is imminent.

“How’s seven?” she asks.

I think page 69 conveys a decent sense of the universe throwing things at Mo that he doesn’t expect. The cop is a new complication: Let no good deed go unpunished, right? In Chapter One he saves her from drowning—which isn’t even his job, but the lifeguards were being inattentive. Now his good deed comes back to haunt him. The page also includes a quick bit about Mo’s perfect pitch—a recurring motif. (Mo believes his perfect pitch is more of a cosmic joke than a useful talent: after all, he’s the drummer.)

So life/death, music, the prospect of a crime, an uneasy relationship…I suppose that page has a lot of the novel baked into it. But I recommend readers start with Chapter One.

Visit Michael Kardos's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Three Day Affair.

My Book, The Movie: The Three-Day Affair.

My Book, The Movie: Before He Finds Her.

The Page 69 Test: Before He Finds Her.

The Page 69 Test: Bluff.

--Marshal Zeringue