The Page 69 Test: "The Snow Lies Deep"

Paula Munier is the USA TODAY bestselling author of the Mercy Carr mysteries. A Borrowing of Bones, the first in the series, was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award

and named the Dogwise Book of the Year. Blind Search also won a Dogwise Award. The Hiding Place and The Wedding Plot both appeared on several “Best Of” lists. Home at Night, the fifth book in the series, was inspired by her volunteer work as a Natural Resources Steward of New Hampshire.

Along with her love of nature, Munier credits the hero dogs of Mission K9 Rescue, her own rescue dogs, and a deep affection for New England as her series’ major influences.

A literary agent by day, she’s also written three popular books on writing: Plot Perfect, The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings, and Writing with Quiet Hands, as well as Happier Every Day and the memoir Fixing Freddie: The True Story of a Boy, a Mom, and a Very, Very Bad Beagle.

Munier applied the Page 69 Test to her new Mercy Carr mystery, The Snow Lies Deep, and reported the following:

Turn to page 69 in The Snow Lies Deep, my seventh Mercy Carr mystery, and you’ll find yourself in the middle of a Winter Solstice ceremony. It’s the first night of Northshire’s annual Solstice Soirée, the quaint Vermont village’s countdown to New Year’s—and the show must go on, even if there has been a suspicious death earlier in the day. The local grove of Druids is in charge of the spectacular bonfire that opens the official holiday season. The town green has been transformed into a Winter Wonderland, full of Christmas markets and food booths, but all have gathered around the labyrinth garden to watch the lighting of the bonfire. Mercy Carr and her family are all there, watchful and worried but entranced nonetheless by the beauty and simplicity of the ritual.

At least until the murderer strikes again.

From page 69:
Though some might mistake him in his flowing robe and beard at quick glance for Saint Nicholas, to her, Oisin always looked every inch the pagan priest, no matter where he was or what he was doing or what he was wearing.

He raised his staff, and his fellow Druids fell silent. The crowd outside the garden also quieted. There was a moment of hushed anticipation, broken only by the booming baritone of Oisin himself. “Hail and welcome.”

Behind the Arch-Druid, the burly Druid blew the carnyx again. He was now flanked by two bagpipers, who played along in a mournful counterpoint to the primeval howling of the ancient horn. A fiddler and a Celtic harpist stepped up to join them, forming a little band of sorts. The Druids’ eerie music took a more melodic turn. It reminded Mercy of some of the more haunting Celtic ballads she’d heard in pubs in Boston.

“Here we go,” said Grace.

The remaining Druids—around fifty or so, by Mercy’s count—removed small crowns of antlers from under their cloaks and placed them on their heads. In the growing gloom of dusk, the antlered Druids looked like stags moving in and out of the mist of the deep forest.

They moved to the edge of the Yule logs, creating a circle within a circle within a circle. Now Mercy could see the straps that they wore over their robes to secured their frame drums to their sides. Steadying the goatskin drums with one hand, they held their double-headed tippers in the other.

“It’s a bodhrán,” Mercy whispered to Tandie before she could ask. “The native drum of the ancient Celts. And traditional Irish music.”

“And Druids,” Tandie whispered back as the members of the Cosmic Ash Grove began to drum, adding a pulsating beat to the music of the solstice. “I like their antlers.”

The Arch-Druid tapped his staff on the rock in time to the music. The drumming continued, and one by one the other instruments dropped out of the performance. Until only the drums beat on in a firework of percussion—faster and faster and faster—as the last of the sun’s rays disappeared below the horizon.
Page 69 reflects the fact that December is the perfect time for a murder mystery. The Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas…all are about finding the light shining in the darkness. Winter acknowledges our shadow selves—and asks us to embrace the light. Murder mysteries are about the best and worst of human nature—the dark and the light—so it seems fitting to set a crime novel during the most wonderful time of the year.