"An Artful Dodge"

Karen Odden received her PhD in English from New York University and taught Victorian literature at UW-Milwaukee. She is the author of several crime novels set in 1870s London, including her award-winning USA Today bestselling debut, A Lady in the Smoke. Her work has been nominated for the Lefty, Anthony, Agatha, and Derringer Awards, and appeared in Best Mystery Stories of the Year.

Odden applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, An Artful Dodge, with the following results:

Page 69 falls in chapter 6, and the passage represents a conversation between Kit Jimeson, my 20-year-old heroine thief, and her sister Sarah, age 14, who is a scullery maid at a wealthy household in Mayfair. One night, as Sarah is leaving work, she spots two thugs from her crime-ridden neighborhood of Elephant and Castle and wonders, What are they doing here? The following day, the newspapers report a nearby Mayfair house was burglarized and two servants murdered. On this page, Kit is asking Sarah if there is any chance that the two men saw her. At first, Sarah insists they couldn’t have; then she admits she can’t be sure; they may have. Kit knows that if the two thugs believe Sarah witnessed them in Mayfair, they’ll kill her to silence her.

The Page 69 Test works amazingly well for An Artful Dodge! As the two sisters only have each other, Kit is always preoccupied with Sarah’s safety. Later in the book, Maggie, the new head of Kit’s thieving gang, kidnaps Sarah to force Kit to run a heist that is incredibly dangerous—but as we see on page 69, Kit’s concern is keeping her sister safe, so she takes on the heist … though not in the way Maggie intends. Furthermore, this conversation highlights other themes in the book—how we bring ourselves with us wherever we go and how London is vast yet interconnected. Sarah can leave seedy Elephant and Castle for wealthy Mayfair—literally, she crosses the River Thames—but her world is still with her.

The idea for this book began with my visit to the Great Scotland Yard Hotel in London, with a bar called “The Forty Elephants.” My daughter and I went in for a drink and a QR code on the table offered more information about the “Forty Elephants.” Of course I clicked. I learned the name referred to an all-women thieving gang that began in the 1870s in the Elephant and Castle neighborhood, south of the Thames, and that targeted the new West End department stores. I was instantly fascinated by this thieving ring and by the bonds that held these women together; was there honor among these thieves? I often feel my mystery plots are the clotheslines upon which I hang my current preoccupations; with this book, I wanted to explore relationships and loyalty among women, and this moment when these two sisters have a conversation with life-and-death implications is central to that concern.

Visit Karen Odden's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Karen Odden and Rosy.

The Page 69 Test: A Lady in the Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Lady in the Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Duet.

The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Duet.

Writers Read: Karen Odden (January 2020).

Q&A with Karen Odden.

My Book, The Movie: Down a Dark River.

The Page 69 Test: Down a Dark River.

My Book, The Movie: Under a Veiled Moon.

The Page 69 Test: Under a Veiled Moon.

Writers Read: Karen Odden (October 2022).

Writers Read: Karen Odden.

--Marshal Zeringue