"A Lonesome Place for Murder"

Nolan Chase lives and works in the Pacific Northwest.

A Lonesome Place for Murder is his second book featuring Ethan Brand. It follows A Lonesome Place for Dying, which earned starred reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.

Chase applied the Page 69 Test to A Lonesome Place for Murder with the following results:

From page 69:

…the remains on the slightly tilted autopsy table, laid out on that stainless steel, affected him more than he’d though. Part of it was the decomposition, the mixture of wax and leather, bone and parchment. Partly it was thinking this was what remained of Tyler Rash. The kid who’d come to live with him for a time. The man who’d intervened and tried to help him.

Something else, too. Ethan had been down in that tunnel. He’d seen the dead man’s resting place, shared it for a brief while. Their lives had intersected over the years—in a way it was like viewing one possible outcome of his own life. If Ty hadn’t come to him that last time…

Ethan left the room.

At heart, A Lonesome Place for Murder is a story about family, loss, and crime. This excerpt from page 69 hits those themes solidly. Tyler Rash might be victim, intended victim, murderer, or something else entirely, but he and Ethan Brand are connected by blood and history. And they’re on a collision course…

Chief Ethan Brand stumbles on an abandoned smuggling tunnel, with a body lying inside. The dead man is somehow connected to Ethan’s childhood friend Tyler Rash. What was Tyler doing in the tunnel, and who wanted to killed him? Ethan and his senior investigator, Brenda Lee Page, have to find answers before the killer finds them.

Visit Nolan Chase's website.

Writers Read: Nolan Chase (May 2024).

The Page 69 Test: A Lonesome Place for Dying.

My Book, The Movie: A Lonesome Place for Dying.

My Book, The Movie: A Lonesome Place for Murder.

Writers Read: Nolan Chase.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sweetener"

Marissa Higgins is a lesbian writer. She is the author of the novel A Good Happy Girl.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Sweetener, and shared the following:

I feel like Sweetener exists so I can talk about page 69. It is perfect for my freaky little book. Sweetener comes in at 256 pages, a hair longer than my first freaky novel A Good Happy Girl. Page 69 of Sweetener opens with a split sentence, the tail end of a bigger picture: "and slower if she can help me call anyone, and I shake my head gingerly." Greasy Rebecca (narrator Rebecca) has just walked in front of (and been hit by) a moving car and Charlotte, my neurotic artist dating two Rebeccas concurrently, is trying to get Rebecca to go to the hospital to get checked out. But Charlotte and the Rebeccas are all disturbed, and Charlotte doesn't really want to go to the hospital; she wants to consume both Rebeccas alive. She settles for going into a bakery with possibly-concussed Rebecca instead.

"You're so confused," Charlotte tells Rebecca, who doesn't realize Charlotte's been the one she's meeting from the sugaring app. Why? Rebecca is thrown by Charlotte's big fake belly, which Charlotte holds while speaking

"I saw it happen from inside," Charlotte tells Rebecca. "I've been waiting..."

"For the arches of Heaven," I fill in. "Or the gates of hell?"

The whole book is a slice of these strange women's lives while they're "dyking out." The reader (and myself) are equally disoriented and consumed by what these dykes are willing to do "in plain sight" to get something they want, even if their desires are a mystery to themselves. In the running include having (or stealing) a baby, being a sugar mama, severing or saving a marriage, and fostering a real child. And explicit lesbian sex with a fake pregnancy belly.

"I've got to get going," Rebecca finally tells Charlotte, incorrectly thinking this can't be the woman she's been messaging; that pregnancy belly looks big. Sweetener is the story of women who don't recognize each other or themselves, but they're emotionally the same: three reduces to one, if not literally, thematically. Style is really important to me, and I think this page represents my writing the best; no quotation marks, weird images, language that's motivated by sound and rhythm. Built to annoy most readers and a little reward for people who let my music get into their head.

"I refuse to see a doctor or a nurse or anyone who has any expectation of being paid for their time," Rebecca, who is calling her broke self a sugar mama online, reasons. "I tell myself to look up what to do after you've been hit by. car when I get back to my room; someone else without insurance must have vlogged it."

If you don't like page 69, you probably won't like the rest of the book: my girls are insufferable, like me. But if you get to page 69, you probably are interested or neutral enough to finish reading. I personally think hate or disgust reads are great, and I don't think you have to enjoy a book to love it or be changed by it.

Visit Marissa Higgins's website and follow her on Instagram and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Gone in the Night"

Joanna Schaffhausen wields a mean scalpel, skills she developed in her years studying neuroscience. She has a doctorate in psychology, which reflects her long-standing interest in the brain―how it develops and the many ways it can go wrong. Previously, she worked as a scientific editor in the field of drug development. Prior to that, she was an editorial producer for ABC News, writing for programs such as World News Tonight, Good Morning America, and 20/20. She lives in the Boston area with her husband, daughter, and an obstreperous basset hound named Winston.

Schaffhausen applied the Page 69 Test to Gone in the Night, the fifth Detective Annalisa Vega novel, and reported the following:

Page 69 finds PI Annalisa Vega puzzling over an anonymous note that proclaims her client, Joe Green, is innocent of murder:

Annalisa reread the note as she walked out. “You know what’s odd?” she remarked to Nick.

“The B at the end. Whoever sent the note went to a lot of trouble to keep their identity hidden, so why write anything at all as a signature?”

“Maybe it’s trying to throw us off. Maybe the B doesn’t mean anything.”

Karma leaned over and peeked at the note as they walked to the main door. “That’s not a B,” she said. “It’s a rune.”

“A what?” Nick stopped walking so Annalisa halted too.

Karma grabbed the note without asking. “I mean, it is kind of a B, like an early B from the ancient Germanic languages. See how it looks like two sideways triangles on top of one another. It’s a Berkanan. It represents rebirth, wisdom, sanctuary, and healing. I’m surprised that Charlotte didn’t tell you this herself.”

“And why is that?” Annalisa asked.

Karma handed the note back to Annalisa with a shrug. “Because she has one tattooed on her leg.”

This half-page is a pretty good sample of what you can expect from the Annalisa Vega novels. Annalisa digs into every tiny detail of her investigations, including wondering about the motive of why someone sending an anonymous note would bother to sign it. Her question leads to an important revelation in this case, which is that the B is not a letter but a rune. Even more crucially, the director of the women’s shelter, Charlotte, has one tattooed on her leg, suggesting a link between her and the person who sent the anonymous note. Charlotte has just finished telling Annalisa she knows nothing about the case, and now Annalisa suspects her of lying.

More generally, the Berkanan represents one of the themes of the book, which is a meditation on whether it’s possible to start over. Can you get a second chance in life? Who deserves one? Annalisa put her brother in prison years ago and the move solidified her moral code at the expense of her personal relationships. The Vegas’ struggle to heal is one of the main currents through all the books, leading to the culmination in this one as Annalisa confronts her brother at last.

Visit Joanna Schaffhausen's website.

The Page 69 Test: All the Best Lies.

Writers Read: Joanna Schaffhausen (February 2020).

Q&A with Joanna Schaffhausen.

My Book, The Movie: Gone for Good.

The Page 69 Test: Gone for Good.

Writers Read: Joanna Schaffhausen (August 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Dead and Gone.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Both Things Are True"

Kathleen Barber is the author of Truth Be Told (2017, originally published as Are You Sleeping), which was adapted into a series on AppleTV+ by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine media company, and Follow Me (2020). A graduate of the University of Illinois and Northwestern University School of Law, she now lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and children.

Barber applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Both Things Are True, with the following results:

Page 69 of Both Things Are True drops the reader into the middle of a conversation Vanessa and Sam are having as they walk from a chance encounter at Walgreens toward either respective homes. This is, in fact, the first time the two of them have spoken in five years, and there's tension between them as they look for safe conversational ground. The Page 69 Test works because this scene is a really accurate representation of the story as a whole: Vanessa and Sam spend most of the book trying to figure out whether they should put the past—and those five years where they didn't speak—behind them, and how their lives might fit together now. In particular, this section in the middle of the page encapsulates so much of the drama between the two of them:

But Sam doesn't ask about Jack, not directly. Instead, he says, "What are you doing in Chicago? Last I heard, you lived in New York."

"I'm staying with my sister for a while. Trying something new."

"Faith, right?"

I blink, genuinely surprised. "I can't believe you remember my sister's name."

"Of course I do," he says softly. "She's important to you, and you were important to me."

Were. Were important. The verb tense is as sharp as a knife.

Those lines hit so many important points of the novel: (2) the looming shadow of Vanessa's ex-fiancé Jack and what he did; (2) Vanessa moving in with her sister to rebuild her life; (3) Sam knowing everything about Vanessa; and (4) the ache of knowing that they once had love and lost it.

Visit Kathleen Barber's website.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Me.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (March 2020).

12 Yoga Questions with Kathleen Barber.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Playback"

Raised in Los Angeles, Carla Malden began her career working in motion picture production and development before becoming a screenwriter. Along with her father, Academy Award winning actor Karl Malden, she co-authored his critically acclaimed memoir When Do I Start?

Carla Malden’s feature writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, highlighting the marvels and foibles of Southern California and Hollywood. She sits on the Board of the Geffen Playhouse. Her previous novels include Search Heartache, Shine Until Tomorrow, and My Two and Only.

Malden lives in Brentwood with her husband, ten minutes (depending on traffic) from her daughter.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Playback, and shared the following:

“I want to go after him but am glued to the spot, crunched in the crowd. I can feel the blood rushing through my veins. I close my eyes to let my body recalibrate. I’m metabolizing this new reality that once again includes Jimmy Westwood.”

While the rest of page 69 details a specific moment in a specific scene, this first paragraph at the top of the page fulfills the premise of the Page 69 Test astonishingly well. These few lines echo one of the book’s major themes: Mari has been stuck, trapped in her present-day life, having shoved all that she learned about love and life in her time travel trip to 1967 to an inaccessible cubby in her brain. She may not know it consciously, but she has compared everything that has come after her first trip to 1967 to the love she found there. Here, on page 69, she finds herself face to face with that love, Jimmy Westwood, for the first time in seventeen years, precisely half her life. This little paragraph describes her visceral reaction to the moment, a reaction occurring on such a deeply cellular level that it requires “recalibration” and “metabolization.”

The Page 69 Test reveals the internal struggle that so characterizes Mari Caldwell, the lead character. At its simplest level, it’s a mind/body battle. Mari has sculpted the life she thought she wanted, the one that looked perfect. Now that it has crumbled, Mari finds herself revisiting the time – and the love – that cracked open her heart when she was younger.

This paragraph speaks to the heart of the book: Mari’s rediscovery of her capacity for love beyond that she feels for her daughter. Playback passes the test (at least these four sentences do)!

Visit Carla Malden's website.

My Book, The Movie: Playback.

Writers Read: Carla Malden.

Q&A with Carla Malden.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Too Old for This"

Samantha Downing is an internationally bestselling thriller author whose books have appeared on the Sunday Times and USA Today bestseller lists. Her novels include My Lovely Wife, He Started It, For Your Own Good, and A Twisted Love Story.

Her debut novel, My Lovely Wife, was nominated for Edgar, ITW, and Macavity awards in the US, the CWA award in the UK, and was the winner of the Prix des Lectrices award in France.

Downing applied the Page 69 Test to her new thriller, Too Old for This, and reported the following:

On page 69 of Too Old For This, the protagonist, Lottie Jones, is speaking to the police. Lottie is a seventy-five-year-old serial killer who has recently come out of retirement. The police are searching for a missing young woman, and this scene is quite revealing about Lottie. As she answers their questions, she begins to hint at other things going on, sending their investigation off into another direction by implicating someone else may be a responsible for the disappearance. At the same time, she is a bit forgetful, and it takes a few prompts to help her remember some of the details. Or maybe she is not forgetful at all and is only acting that way?

I will let readers decide for themselves about that…

However, what this page does show is how clever Lottie can be, especially when it comes to lying or making up stories on the spot. Because she is a serial killer, she is manipulative and cunning, even in her later years. This exchange is a perfect example of it, and you get a peek into how her mind works. I would say the Page 69 Test, in this case, does provide a good example of what readers can expect in Too Old For This. Lottie is one my favorite characters that I’ve written, and I hope people find her as fascinating as I do!

Visit Samantha Downing's website.

The Page 69 Test: My Lovely Wife.

The Page 69 Test: He Started It.

The Page 69 Test: For Your Own Good.

The Page 69 Test: A Twisted Love Story.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Burial Place"

Stig Abell believes that discovering a crime fiction series to enjoy is one of the great pleasures in life. His first novel, Death Under A Little Sky, introduced Jake Jackson and his attempt to get away from his former life in the beautiful area around Little Sky, followed by Death in a Lonely Place and The Burial Place. Abell is absolutely delighted that there are more on the way. Away from books, he presents the breakfast show on Times Radio, a station he helped to launch in 2020. Before that he was a regular presenter on Radio 4’s Front Row and was the editor and publisher of the Times Literary Supplement.

Abell applied the Page 69 Test to The Burial Place with the following results:

I love this idea. There is a prize in France called Prix de la page 112, which follows the same principle (based apparently on a line from a Woody Allen film where a woman is compared to a poem on page 112 of an ee cummings collection).

Anyway, to page 69 of The Burial Place! It's not a terrible place to start, as it happens: the book's first murder has, at that moment, just taken place in the Christie-esque location of an archaeological dig atop a beautiful, deserted Iron Age fort in the depths of the English countryside. We learn that the victim - a fussy local reverend, who had been party to the discovery of a treasure hoard - was found dying in a trench, having consumed some lethal liquid. It is not full of descriptive prose (which I am fond of), but there are little hints of the textures I enjoy writing about: the "bearish pelt" of my hirsute Scottish Inspector; the "sandpapery rasps" of the dig's director wringing her hands in distress.

Crime fiction is propelled - sadly and savagely - by murders, so this page is an important part of the forward momentum of the whole novel. It's a good "plot" page. It is also the last page of the chapter, so ends on what the Victorians called a "curtain line", a sentence that is designed to draws the reader ever onwards. Here it is:

"Thanks for securing the scene for us, Jake. It's a good job you did. Jordan died not long after he got to hospital, I'm sorry to say. Heart attack brought on by exposure to hydrochloric acid. There's a goodish chance he was murdered".

Murder and a mystery in a place of ancient history - it's what The Burial Place is about.

[I've checked page 112 for it's prize-winning potential, by the way, and it is only 6 lines long - another chapter ending. So I've done rather better with page 69, I reckon.]

Follow Stig Abell on Instagram and Threads.

Q&A with Stig Abell.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Always the Quiet Ones"

Jamie Lee Sogn is a Filipina American author of adult thriller novels. She grew up in Olympia, Washington, studied Anthropology and Psychology at the University of Washington and received her Juris Doctor from the University of Oregon School of Law.

She is a "recovering attorney" who writes contracts by day and (much more exciting) fiction by night. While she has lived in Los Angeles, New York City, and even Eugene, Oregon, she calls the Pacific Northwest and Seattle home.

Her debut novel, Salthouse Place, was an Amazon First Reads and was long listed for The Center for Fiction 2023 First Novel Prize.

Sogn applied the Page 69 Test to her second novel, Always The Quiet Ones, and shared the following:

From page 69:

“As I was leaving, I thought I saw you and your friend talking to him by his car. Didn’t look like you guys were still fighting is all.”

I shake my head. “I honestly don’t remember; it was so late.” I shake my mouse and pretend to be distracted by something on my screen. “Greg, I have to work.”

“Sure, yeah, I’ll just . . .” He leaves and shuts the door behind him. As soon as I see him disappear around the corner, I go for my phone.

Looking in my contacts, I find her and begin a new text.

What the hell happened last night? I search and easily find a news article about Landon. I send it to Kelli.

The reply doesn’t come immediately. It doesn’t come at all. For a moment, I panic and wonder if she gave me a fake number. She was a stranger, after all. How could I have been so stupid?

I stare at my computer screen and wish I could go back to the person I was twenty-four hours earlier.

I get no work done. The office is like a tomb. There’s none of the usual banter or the charged hustle. We’re all in shock, and sure, he was an asshole, but we are all in mourning. I stay in my office and only see Greg pass by once more; he avoids looking at me.

I open my Uber app and look at the history. No rides home last night. Maybe Kelli or Landon ordered the car for me. No texts or photos reveal anything either. I go to the Saul Group’s website and look at the associate directory. I realize I don’t even remember Kelli’s last name or the department she works in; I scroll slowly through the list of all associates and don’t see a single Kelli listed. But it’s possible the website isn’t up to date; I know the BCC site still lists interns from last summer. I go to LinkedIn next and search for Kellis in the greater Seattle area working at the Saul Group. Still no results.

The Page 69 Test works remarkably well for this book! On this page, the browser meets the main character, Bea, the morning after an eventful night out took a fateful turn. Feeling mistreated by her toxic male boss, Bea is beginning to feel as if she’s never going to get the promotion she’s been working towards. So after meeting a woman at a nightclub, Kelli, and bonding over shared experiences of being women in the male dominated field of law, Bea and her new friend joke about making a deal to murder each other’s boss. Then, Bea wakes up to some shocking news. Her hated boss has been found dead. Bea can’t remember anything from the night before and she fears the worst.

On page 69, we see her arriving at work the morning after her night out with Kelli, her new friend and confidant… and possible accomplice, but to what, Bea isn’t quite sure yet. Unsure yet if she has anything to feel guilty about, Bea can’t help but feel as if all eyes are on her. Her mind is racing through the scenarios of the night before and who could have possibly seen her and Kelli. Then she begins to realize she doesn’t know anything about Kelli at all. Bea is horrified to think that the woman she knows as “Kelli” might not even exist. Bea might be totally alone and a suspect in her boss’s death.

The test works so well because this page is more or less the setup and conflict for the larger mystery of the novel, that is, who exactly is Kelli and who killed Bea’s boss? And how does Bea fit in? I would hope the browser reading this page would want to continue to find out what happened next. Because it turns out that Bea has a past that makes Kelli’s friendship, real or imagined, triggering in of itself. Even though she is the protagonist, she’s not a perfect character either and hides some secrets of her own. But that’s for another page…

Visit Jamie Lee Sogn's website.

Q&A with Jamie Lee Sogn.

My Book, The Movie: Salthouse Place.

The Page 69 Test: Salthouse Place.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Not Who You Think"

Arbor Sloane grew up in the Midwest and earned her master’s degree of English at Iowa State University. She now teaches community college courses and resides with her family in the Des Moines area.

Sloane applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Not Who You Think, and reported the following:

Here is an excerpt from page 69:

Note: This is a meeting between Amelia, a true crime writer who is covering the case of a missing classmate of her daughter, Gabby, and the school counselor.

I sit down and give him an expectant look, wishing he would hurry up and get to the point.

"I spoke with Gabrielle this morning," he says, tenting his fingers.

"Oh?" I think of how she hugged me this morning, reassured me. Maybe she was putting up a stronger front than she really felt.

"It seems that she's pretty troubled about the Mahoney girl's disappearance. Would it be alright if I met with her a few times a week until all this is solved?"

I pause. For a long time, I've been wondering if it would be good to get Gabby into some type of therapy. Now, after she's read my book, I'm leaning toward yes. It can't be easy, realizing the terrible things that happen in this world and that your mother was tangled up in them somehow.

"You know, I think that might be a good idea."

He nods, pleased.

I think of how satisfying his job must be, seeing people in trouble and actively being able to help ease their pain in some way. I wish that I could take away what Bridget Mahoney is going through right now. It only makes me more determined to find her.

I get up to leave, but Mr. Blair holds out a hand, halting me. I sink back into the chair, but all the while I'm thinking that I can't wait to get out of here. I need to be helping the police. I need to be taking steps toward getting Bridget home.

"I shouldn't be saying this, but I think there's something you should know," he says, then hesitates for a moment.

The Page 69 Test worked pretty well for Not Who You Think! It reveals the complicated relationship between mother and daughter, how Amelia feels conflicted about her work of interviewing serial killers and how it might affect her daughter when she actually reads the book and sees what her mother is investigating. Her worldview might change, knowing that there are people capable of such atrocities. Her innocence will be shattered. It also touches on the current case she's working on, Gabby's missing classmate. It hints at a clue that will give the reader an idea of what happened to Bridget, as well.

In Not Who You Think, the main character, crime writer Amelia Child is determined to explore the causes that lead to a serial killer's development. Her first book is about Gerald Shapiro, a prolific killer who raped and murdered a number of women after catfishing them through social media. With her detective friend, she helped put Shapiro away for good. But then something baffling happens; women start dying again, and the new killer seems to be following Gerald's M.O. She reunites with her investigator friend in a race against the clock to save Bridget, her daughter's classmate, who has been kidnapped. The knowledge she gained about Gerald Shapiro will come in handy, and she turns out to be more embroiled in the case than she initially thought.

Follow Arbor Sloane on Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Daughters of Flood and Fury"

Gabriella Buba is a mixed Filipina-Czech author and chemical engineer based in Texas who likes to keep explosive pyrophoric materials safely contained in pressure vessels or between the covers of her books. She writes epic fantasy for bold, bi, brown women who deserve to see their stories centered. Her debut Saints of Storm and Sorrow is a Filipino-inspired epic fantasy out with Titan Books. Saints has been named one of Spotify’s Best Audiobooks of 2024, and Buba a Spotify Breakout Author of 2024, and Saints was one of Reactor’s Reviewer’s Choice: Best Books of 2024.

Buba applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Daughters of Flood and Fury, with the following results:

From page 69:

At least he could ease today’s frustration and give Lunurin a place to vent her fears. He wouldn’t let the past rear its ugly head and poison what he and Lunurin had built together, not yet. Not with so much at stake and nothing to be gained.

He pressed his lips to the nape of her neck. Lunurin lifted her head, her dark eyes catching his with heated intention, and he was drowning. He kissed her. Her fingers threaded into the hair at his nape, pulling him closer. Her touch was electric, and he was water before her.

With a sweep of her arm, she cleared her worktable. Broken shell scattered in all directions. The saw bounced off the floor with a clatter and they both jumped, glancing toward the shut door, to see if anyone would come to investigate. But the distant doings of the house continued undisturbed.

Lunurin’s face creased into a laugh. “They’re avoiding my tantrums, I fear.”

Alon kissed the wrinkles above her pert nose. “Good… if anyone comes to check on us, I might do something drastic.”

“Promise?” Lunurin teased.”

If there was going to be anything on page 69 of Daughters of Flood and Fury I couldn’t have orchestrated it better, I love a good innuendo. As a window into the whole work those coming in from page 69 would end up expecting a much higher percentage of steamy scenes and a banter-filled Romantasy vibe. They might be blindsided by the amount of high stakes fantasy politicking, family drama, and high seas piracy they get instead. But as a character study I think page 69 tells you everything you need to know about Alon and Lunurin’s relationship, two of the three main characters of Daughters of Flood and Fury.

I’m a huge fan of intimate scenes that dig at characters’ deepest emotional vulnerabilities. If my characters are stripping down, they’re doing it both physically and figuratively. At home, in private, with her husband, Lunurin doesn’t have to be all powerful, always poised, Lady Stormbringer crowned in lightning with her goddess burning in her eyes. And with his wife Alon doesn’t have to have all the answers, be the perfect diplomat, being present with her is enough.

Where the test falls down is that this passage gives no hint of Inez, and Daughters of Flood and Fury is truly Inez’s book. While Alon and Lunurin remain behind in Aynila struggling to unite their allies to defend their city against the Codician Armada, Inez is chasing her own demons. Busy running away to sea to find her own way with her tide-touched magic and the truth of the rumors about her traitor of a sister returned to the archipelago as a Saint, to aid in the reconquest of Aynila.

Visit Gabriella Buba's website.

My Book, The Movie: Daughters of Flood and Fury.

Writers Read: Gabriella Buba.

Q&A with Gabriella Buba.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Five Found Dead"

After setting out to study astrophysics, graduating in law and then abandoning her legal career to write books, Sulari Gentill now grows French black truffles on her farm in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains of Australia.

Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair mysteries have won and/or been shortlisted for the Davitt Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and her stand-alone metafiction thriller, After She Wrote Him won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel in 2018. Her tenth Sinclair novel, A Testament of Character, was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Best Crime Novel in 2021.

Gentill applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Five Found Dead, and shared the following:

From page 69:

It is actually quite tricky to follow someone on a train without being seen, or so we found. Duplantier’s friend might have been in any of the compartments. We lost him fairly promptly. With no idea where he was, Joe and I decide to return to our own compartment where we can speak unheard. And so it is that we hear something from within 16G as we pass. Joe presses his ear against the door and listens.

“There’s someone in there,” he whispers.

“We should inform— ”

Joe shoves the door to 16G with his shoulder, and I note a fleeting look of surprise on his face when the door flings open.

“Napoleon!” I find myself looking at the Frenchman, who sidesteps hastily to avoid being bowled over by Joe. “What are you—?”

Duplantier places as finger on his lips. A couple of awkward seconds follow wherein we just stare at each other. Finally, the Frenchman speaks.

“This isn’t… I assure you… Allow me to… ” He struggles for some explanation and then, apparently finding nothing even vaguely plausible, shakes his head. He motions me in.

Page 69 is a shorter page, sitting beneath the Chapter 7 header. It features three of Five Found Dead’s most important characters: Meredith Penvale, the narrator, a young woman who gave up her career as a lawyer to support her brother through serious illness; Joe Penvale, Meredith’s twin, a writer who having survived and recovered, is finding his muse on the Orient Express, and the somewhat enigmatic, retired French policeman, Napolean Duplantier. The page finds the three of them in the process of sleuthing. Indeed, it captures the moment when their separate unauthorised investigations run into each other, arguably a microcosm of the overall book in which several “detectives” are running their own inquiries which inevitably collide and cross.

The interaction on this page hints at the natures of Meredith and Joe. She wants to inform someone of the fact that an intruder is in room 16G (the scene of the murder) and he simply barges the door and goes in. As protagonists they embody caution and impulse.

The first line “It is actually quite tricky to follow someone on a train without being seen” is revealing and kind of emblematic of the book as whole. It is tricky to do many things on a train, including write a mystery! The moving train is a closed set in which the spaces are in line, so that in order to reach a particular carriage one must pass through others. Location is crucial and movement complicated. It is not possible to kill someone and simply run away. However, on a train there are many doors through which a murderer may step.

And so page 69 does afford the browser a taste of how Five Found Dead works, but is only a tiny snapshot of the multilayered complications and chaos onboard. It doesn’t really give you an idea of the relationships and connections, some longstanding others newly made, which are at play, and it is neither as thrilling nor as funny as other pages might be. It also does not speak in any way about the influence of story on the way in which we deal with reality—a major theme when one writes a new contemporary mystery on a literary landmark like the Orient Express. Even so, it does give the browser a glimpse, that if limited, is not inaccurate.

Visit Sulari Gentill's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Sulari Gentill & Rowly, Alfie, Miss Higgins and Pig.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Close Call"

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 Close Call, the third novel in the series, and reported the following:

When I turned to page 69 in Close Call, I found the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. The chapter that ended had to do with a woman who promised to share information with my main character Kate about her father. Then, at the last second (and on this page), the woman reneges on the deal.The new chapter takes Kate back to the US Open, the setting for much of the action in the book. 

So the question is, did the Page 69 Test work? In a round about way, I’d say yes. On one hand, the page doesn’t contain any reference to the kidnapping at the heart of the story. So that’s a negative. But the page is filled with a very important development in the Kate Green series arc. Namely, why did Kate’s father abandon her as a child.  Just as Kate was about to learn the truth, the woman with the answer, refused to share the information. And that happened on page 69.

“Don’t contact me again, Kate. And if you’re smart, let this go.” 

She turns and steps down the brick walkway and into her car, not once looking back. The disappointment crushes down on me, physically gutting my insides.”

The second part of page 69, which begins the new chapter, is really just a scene setter at the US Open Tennis Tournament. Kate is hanging out with her photographer, Bill, who recently quit smoking. While the page  mostly contains interpersonal banter between Kate and Bill, it does take place at the most important spot for this thriller. So I’m going to chalk that portion up to a win too. So, I’d say the Page 69 Test sort of, kind of worked.

Visit Elise Hart Kipness's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lights Out.

Q&A with Elise Hart Kipness.

The Page 69 Test: Dangerous Play.

--Marshal Zeringue