"The Plume Hunter"

Renée Thompson writes about wildlife, her love of birds, and the people who inhabit the American West. Her first novel, The Bridge at Valentine, received high praise from Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove. Thompson lives in Northern California with her husband, Steve, and is at work on a collection of short stories.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her novel, The Plume Hunter, and reported the following:

In 1885, more than five million birds were killed in the United States alone for the millinery industry. This figure astounded me, and prompted my desire to write a novel showcasing the plume-hunting trade in the American West. The result is The Plume Hunter, a story about men who shoot birds at the turn of the nineteenth century to sell feathers for women’s hats. In crafting my tale, I created two men – best friends – who love both birds and the land: the first is a plume hunter, the other a man stalwartly opposed to pluming. I knew that their differing philosophies would not only provide conflict, but help propel the plot. My protagonist, Fin McFaddin, is the plume hunter – the story’s dark hero – while Aiden Elliott is the bird’s savior and a prominent figure in the formation of the Audubon Society.

On page 69, the reader sees the shift Aiden has made from his boyhood days, when he shot birds and collected eggs with Fin; we realize he’s positioning himself as a career photographer, and also understand this is the preliminary step to his role as a politician and proponent of the Audubon Society. Here’s the page in its entirety:

…Chapman also encouraged Aiden to take part in the proceedings of scientific societies, serve on committees and directorial boards, and delve deeper into politics. “You do that, and your contributions to the Movement will be handsomely rewarded.”

Aiden embraced it all. He believed it was possible to further enlighten the public by exposing them to photographs of birds they’d not seen before, at least from the perspective of a telephoto lens. He’d had a lot of practice, hauling his camera up Douglas firs, and photographing tanagers and flickers and various birds’ nests. One sunny weekend in March 1898, he placed his camera and lenses in a hard leather case, which he’d stuffed into a satchel containing a dozen glass plates. Slinging the pack across his back, he strapped his tripod to his bicycle and boarded a train for San Francisco. High above the city, on Mission Ridge, he planned to photograph a pair of golden eagles nesting in a sycamore.

Hopping from the train, he jumped onto his bicycle and steered toward the hills, pedaling until the shops and houses gave way to rustic wooden fences. Cows blinked as he rode past. He tipped his hat, eliciting stares from their liquid brown eyes while they stood and worked their cuds.

After another mile or so, he veered onto a rutted path that cut through a pasture. Bumping along, teeth rattling, he worried for a time about the glass plates in his pack. When he reached the end of the road, he propped his bicycle against a barn, checked the contents of his knapsack and found the plates intact. Adjusting his satchel, he set out the rest of the way on foot, since it was now too steep to cycle.

Photography was a hobby he’d come to adore, as it allowed him to traipse the countryside, just as he’d done as a boy. A stand of eucalyptus trees swayed in the distance, filling the air with menthol, and scores of insects buzzed. A mud hen called from a puddle.

Thanks for reading. I hope you like it!

Learn more about the book and author at Renée Thompson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Spy Who Left Me"

Gina Robinson's books include Spy Candy, Spy Games, and The Spy Who Left Me.

She applied the Page 69 Test to The Spy Who Left Me and reported the following:

The Page 69 Test is a fun exercise to run on a book. It certainly makes a writer think about making every page exciting. Page 69 of The Spy Who Left Me is the last page of Chapter Five. Because the page begins in the middle of Tita's block of dialogue, I've put in her entire dialogue paragraph, including a few lines from the page before, so that it will make more sense.

Here's the setup—the hero, Ty, is a spy on a mission in Hawaii. He's undercover as a tour guide working for Tita at her wedding plantation. Tita has no idea Ty's a spy. Treflee is his wife. Although she's still in love with him, she's trying to divorce him without blowing his cover.

Due to circumstances beyond their control, Treflee and Ty must pretend that they just met at the plantation and have no prior relationship. Mrs. Ho runs the neighboring wedding plantation and is Tita's fiercest competitor in the wedding industry. Unknown to Tita and Treflee, Mrs. Ho is also a dangerous member of an international group of terrorists that Ty is trying to stop.

The night before this scene, an assassin has tried to strangle Treflee with a plastic lei in her room. Ty is trying to pass off the bruises on her neck as having come from an accident on Mrs. Ho's property. Suspicious, Mrs. Ho has sent a basket of Hawaiian goodies to Treflee to make amends and to plant a listening bug in Tita's establishment.

The Spy Who Left Me, Page 69:

Tita waved a hand. “Thoughtful?” She shook her head. “No, Mrs. Ho thinks only of harmony and avoiding a lawsuit. You got hurt on her property. Her harmony is out of balance. For her own sake, she owes you something to make you whole. She should have come herself to make sure you’re okay, not sent a boy with a basket.”

“Speaking of the basket, I’ll just take this upstairs for you.” Ty turned.

“Wait! I’d like a look.” Treflee tried to stop him.

“It’ll be in your room.”

This was the problem with being married to a spy. They were suspicious of everything. He was probably going to paw through it looking for bugs or who knows what. And she’d just bet he’d take the good stuff for himself.

Treflee let him go. She’d find out what he was up to later. She smiled at Tita. “Even so, I’d better write a thank-you.”

“First, you eat. Or you’ll never make it through your surfing lesson today.”

Page 69 is only a half-page, but even in this brief scene some of the humorous feel of the book comes through. And it's clear that Treflee isn't pleased with being married to a spy and is suspicious of all his actions. She's also being pulled into his world of intrigue and used as a pawn to get to his enemy. That's good.

The rivalry and dislike between Tita and Mrs. Ho also comes through, as well as a hint of the tropical Hawaiian vacation feel of the book. Pick up a copy of The Spy Who Left Me and discover for yourself the humor, suspense, and romance that make this book a fun spy romp.

Learn more about the book and author at Gina Robinson's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Egypt: The Book of Chaos"

Nick Drake's critically acclaimed novel Nefertiti was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award; his Tutankhamun was a Publishers Weekly top 100 books selection. He has published two award-winning collections of poetry, and his play Success was performed at the National Theatre in London, where he is a literary associate. Drake's screenplays include the critically acclaimed Romulus, My Father (starring Eric Bana), which won Best Film at the Australian Film Awards in 2007.

He applied the Page 69 Test to the final novel in his trilogy featuring Rahotep, Egypt: The Book of Chaos, and reported the following:

On p69 of Egypt: The Book of Chaos, detective Rahotep is on a boat, crossing the Nile, returning to the great city of Thebes; he's just been to the Royal Palace for an interview with Queen Ankhesenamun and her Chief Advisor, Nakht - who happens to be one of Rahotep's dearest friends. Rahotep's life has long been entwined with the Royal Family; he found Nefertiti, the mother of Ankhesenamun, when she vanished, and brought her back alive (in Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead); and he tried to defend her husband, Tutankhamun, against the death threats that ultimately brought his life to a premature end (in Tutankhamun: The Book of Shadows).

The Queen has instructed Rahotep to undertake a highly secret, perilous mission for her; he and Nakht must travel north, across the Egyptian borders, through the dangerous and unstable territories of the Levant, to deliver a letter containing an audacious offer, to the King of the Hittites, whose base is in modern-day central Turkey. She asks the King to send her one of his sons for her to marry, and to join her on the throne of Egypt. The stakes could not be higher, for if they fail, or if the offer is refused, her dynasty will almost certainly be crushed by Horemheb, the General of the Army.

The Hittites were Russia to Egypt's America at this time; their power was expanding rapidly, and they were taking control of kingdoms and principalities which had for long been dominated by the might of Egypt. On p 69 Nakht explains to Rahotep the secret reasons for their journey into this unstable world; but what Rahotep doesn't tell Nakht is that he also has a personal reason to go; his side-kick Khety has been murdered in the most barbaric way by the mysterious leader of a merciless and powerful opium cartel; Rahotep has reason to think he might discover more of the identity of the killer outside Egypt; so, breaking a promise to his wife and children not to leave them again, in the pages that follow, he decides to accept the Queen's command, and undertake a journey into the great unknown.

Learn more about the book and author at Nick Drake's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dark Men"

Derek Haas is the author of the bestselling novel The Silver Bear. He also co-wrote the screenplays for 3:10 to Yuma, starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, and Wanted, starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, and Angelina Jolie. His forthcoming film, The Double, starring Richard Gere and Topher Grace, is directed by his screenwriting partner Michael Brandt and will be released in 2011.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Dark Men, and reported the following:

The 69th page, eh? Good choice! For my three books, I have the same first-person narrator, a contract killer known as Columbus. But in the course of the books, other characters tell stories at times, and on the 69th page of Dark Men, a character named Smoke tells the story of his time in prison. I love to tell stories within stories… been fascinated with the idea since reading the Canterbury Tales in college, where Chaucer would have a story within a story within a story within a story. It gives me a chance to throw a different voice at the reader, and I think Smoke's tale is quite entertaining.

Learn more about Dark Men at Derek Haas's website.

My Book, The Movie: Dark Men.

Writers Read: Derek Haas.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Murder Season"

Robert Ellis is a former filmmaker and political media consultant from Los Angeles. His bestselling crime novels include Access to Power, The Dead Room, City of Fire, and The Lost Witness.

Ellis applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Murder Season, and reported the following:

Murder Season is my personal favorite of the three Lena Gamble novels. It’s a bigger than life Hollywood murder mystery, dark and twisted, very fast and very spooky. The tip of the iceberg is exposed quickly. There’s been a double murder at Club 3 AM, a private nightclub that caters to the Hollywood A-list. The media is feeding on rumors and swarming the police line at the club. LAPD brass and the DA’s office have their stingers out. And unfortunately for homicide detective Lena Gamble, she’s just been assigned a case so hush-hush no one would give her even a single detail over the phone.

The first victim is the powerful Johnny Bosco, owner of Club 3 AM and keeper of Hollywood’s greatest secrets. But it’s the second murder victim who’s way too hot to handle. 25-year-old Jacob Gant, acquitted just weeks ago in L.A.’s latest trial-of-the-century for murdering his 16-year-old neighbor, the beautiful and innocent Lily Hight.

The obvious suspect for the double murder is Lily’s father, Tim Hight, a strange, edgy man who has more than one monkey on his back and refuses to talk. On page 69 Lena is just finishing a search for the murder weapon in his home office when she realizes that Hight is a former film director who would have been familiar with the gunshot wounds to Jacob Gant’s head.

Lena had seen the same wounds in a John Ford western called The Searchers, and remembered it as she examined Gant’s corpse at the crime scene. It was the fact that the killer had shot out Jacob Gant’s eyes just the way it happened in the movie. It was the fact that the Comanches believed that without eyes a victim couldn’t enter the spirit world. Without eyes, Jacob Gant would be forced to wander between the winds forever...

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg in Murder Season. The twists and turns and roller coaster ride are yet to come.

Learn more about the book and author at Robert Ellis's website and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: City of Fire.

The Page 69 Test: The Lost Witness.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Autumn: Disintegration"

David Moody is the author of Hater, Dog Blood, and four-going-on-five books in the Autumn series. He grew up in Birmingham, England, on a diet of horror movies and post-apocalyptic fiction. He started his career working at a bank, but then decided to write the kind of fiction he loved. His first novel, Straight to You, had what Moody calls “microscopic sales,” and so when he wrote Autumn, he decided to publish it online. The book became a sensation and has been downloaded by half a million readers. He started his own publishing company, Infected Books. He lives in Britain with his wife and a houseful of daughters, which may explain his preoccupation with Armageddon.

Moody applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Autumn: Disintegration, and reported the following:

Autumn: Disintegration was originally conceived as an afterthought to my Autumn series of zombie novels. I began writing the books back in 2001, long before the zombie overkill which has a stranglehold on the horror genre today; long before people started rolling their eyes and groaning like the undead at the very mention of the ‘z word’.

It’s ironic, because the Autumn books are not about zombies at all. They’re about the people who’ve survived: those poor, helpless, desperate individuals left to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of an infection which has killed billions.

As I’ve hinted, the Autumn books aren’t your typical zombie stories: I’ve tried to make the characters act like I think you or I might should the unthinkable actually happen. They don’t do what the people in the movies do. They withdraw. They bicker. They struggle. Many people liked the approach I took. Some ‘purists’ definitely didn’t.

So what would happen, I thought, if a few stereotypical gung-ho characters found themselves trapped in the claustrophobic, dead world of Autumn? Page 69 of Disintegration typifies the friction between those who want to confront the dead, and those who simply want to survive. To some, fighting is a last resort. To others, it’s sport. In anticipation of a cull of the corpses gathered around the survivors’ stronghold, two men are sent out into the lifeless city to cause a distraction and draw some of the dead away.

Thing is, as the survivors of the previous Autumn books have discovered to their cost, it’s one thing talking the talk, but the reality of life among the undead is a very different matter:

Jas looked up as Harte approached. ‘You ready for this?’ he asked. He sounded subdued.

‘Suppose,’ Harte mumbled, adjusting the straps of a small rucksack which he then hoisted onto his back. ‘Let’s just get it done, shall we?’

Last night it had sounded like a sensible plan, but now, standing here in the cold light of morning, in full view of the endless devastation that was all that was left of their world, they were beginning to wonder exactly what they’d agreed to. The plan was for them to go out and create a distraction in a bid to reduce some of the pressure at the front of the crowd, but Jas suddenly felt less like a decoy and more like bait.

Learn more about the book and author at the official Autumn website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Storm Damage"

Ed Kovacs has worked for many years as a private security contractor deploying to challenging locations worldwide. He is a member of AFIO, Association for Intelligence Officers, the International Thriller Writers organization, and the Mystery Writers of America.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Storm Damage, and reported the following:

From page 69:

After her shift Honey joined me at Peedy’s Place, a grubby cop hang in a dismal little mini-mall on Cleary in Jefferson Parish. Peedy’s doesn’t serve food, which is probably a good thing, so I’d stopped at the Swamp Room on Veterans, which had just reopened for business, to get us “dressed” Swamp Burgers and cheese fries.

About a dozen off-duty coppers were getting hammered in Peedy’s, where a Jack and Seven cost three bucks, not the nine bucks you’d pay in the Quarter, and you could blow off steam among peers. I recognized officers from NOPD, and deputies from St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, and Plaquemines Parishes. Two female JP deputies used warped cues to shoot eight-ball on a seven foot table with dead bumpers. Four Hispanic laborers sat at a corner table nursing beers and smiling like their face muscles were frozen. They were probably very nervous illegals who realized too late they had stumbled into a cop bar.

After allowing several coppers to snake some of my fries, Honey and I focused on watching Kendall take a beating in Miami live on Spike TV. The K-1 fight wasn’t even close and ended quickly. So we hunched over the high table, returning our attention to the junk food and cheap cocktails.

“Your guy didn’t look too good. Bet I could kick his ass,” said Honey as she took a bite of her huge burger.

“You want to go pro, I’ll coach you.”

“Haven’t been in a fight since the Storm. I’m ready for one.”

“Careful what you wish for.” I had already filled her in regarding the day’s developments. She hid her disapproval of how I handled Duplessis and had no idea who Tommy Boudreaux was.

“Ever hear of Jimmy Nguyen?” she asked, licking cheese dip from her finger.

“That’s a pretty common Vietnamese name. It’s like John Smith,”

Even though a Page 69 “test” might be somewhat arbitrary, I kind of liked the idea and was happy to post my entire page 69 above for examination. Storm Damage is hard-boiled American noir, and here we find ourselves in a very noir locale, “a grubby cop hang.” My hero and heroine are present, swilling cheap drinks while eating junk food. They’re talking about fights and about the case. Their banter is indicative of their relationship and some of the dialogue gives us info about what kind of people our characters are. There is reference to the “Storm,” which of course, plays almost like a character in the book. At the bottom of the page, the dialogue leads us into some plot advancement.

So while we don’t have an action scene or a major plot point revelation, we have good setting, characterization, thematic elements and plot development. Check, check, and check. No quibble from me, but would a reader want to keep reading? There are as many possible answers to that question as there are readers, but I was humbled when Booklist compared Storm Damage to Dashiel Hammett’s Red Harvest. I think readers of crime fiction and mystery fans who like their material with a darker edge will enjoy my novel.

Learn more about the book and author at Ed Kovacs's website.

My Book, The Movie: Storm Damage.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Perilous Conception"

Larry Karp grew up in Paterson, NJ and New York City. He practiced perinatal medicine (high-risk pregnancy care) and wrote general nonfiction books and articles for 25 years, then, in 1995, he left medical work to begin a second career, writing mystery novels. The backgrounds and settings of Karp's mysteries reflect many of his interests, including musical antiques, medical-ethical issues, and ragtime music.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, A Perilous Conception, and reported the following:

Here's most of Page 69 of A Perilous Conception. The speaker is Police Detective Bernie Baumgartner, who's talking to locksmith/lockpicker/sidekick Irwin McKeesport ("Iggy the Key") in Iggy's lock shop. Bernie wants Iggy's help in opening a wooden box the detective had found among the possessions of a person who had disappeared.

The selection below represents a key (so to speak) point in Baumgartner's investigation. What he finds in the box will be of major importance as he carries his probe forward. There is also a reminder that the detective is obligated to work quietly, since influential people are trying to get the case closed quickly, with no embarrassment to the University.

I set the wooden box on the table in front of him.

The little guy had you-gotta-be-kidding-me all over his face. He jabbed a finger at the box. "Mr. B, I gotta say, I don't believe this. You need the help of a professional to get this piece of shit open?"

"I could crack it with a knife blade, or stomp it into splinters, Ig. But I've got no idea what's inside, and whatever it is, I want to find it in the right number of pieces. And I need to have the job done very privately."

Doubt spread over Iggy's mug. "It ain't gonna blow up on me, is it?"

"I shrugged. No idea what's in there. Tell you what. Get me a key, then stand back, and I'll open it."

He marched off, not another word, down the stairs into the basement. Not three minutes later, he was back, holding up two flat keys. "If at least one of these don't do the job, I'll eat that box." He slid the first key into the slot, wiggled it, twisted his wrist. "Close." Then he withdrew the key ever so slightly, and worked it gently back and forth. "I can feel...yeah." The key spun 180 degrees. He threw the lid open.

We gawked into the box, then at each other. "Dip me in shit," Iggy whispered. He chugged out from behind the counter, threw the lock on his front door, turned the cardboard sign to CLOSED, and pulled down the shade behind it. Then he came running back to stand beside me and rubberneck over the box.

Learn more about the book and author at Larry Karp's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: A Perilous Conception.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hurt Machine"

Reed Farrel Coleman has been called a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan. He has published fourteen novels and is the three-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best Detective Novel of the Year and has been twice nominated for the Edgar Award. Coleman has also won the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards. He is an adjunct professor of English at Hofstra University and lives with his family on Long Island.

Coleman applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Hurt Machine, and reported the following:

Hurt Machine is the seventh installment in the multi-award winning Moe Prager Mystery series, following last year’s release of Innocent Monster. Unlike earlier in the series when there were long gaps of time between events in each book, the events in Hurt Machine take place roughly a year after Moe successfully, if not happily, resolves the case he was working on in Innocent Monster. His daughter is two weeks away from her wedding when Moe receives grave news about his own health. A few days after receiving the bad news, Moe’s ex-wife and former PI partner, Carmella Melendez, shows up to ask a desperate favor of Moe. Moe, who hasn’t seen or heard from Carmella since their marriage fell apart a decade earlier, is none too pleased, but can’t help but be curious. It seems that Carmella’s estranged sister had been murdered on the street outside a popular Brooklyn eatery. The thing of it is, no one in New York City, not even the NYPD, seems very keen on finding the killer. Why? That’s the question, isn’t it? On page 69—a brief coda at the end of a chapter—Moe is in a philosophical and reminiscing about his childhood.

I realized I hadn’t called Pam [Moe’s current girlfriend] or Sarah [his daughter] in a few days. Although Pam was a PI, she wasn’t Brian Doyle’s [tough guy] type of PI. She wasn’t big on surveillance, but she did kick the occasional ass. I wasn’t going to risk waking her, not at that hour. So I looked out my front window at Sheepshead Bay and thought back to when I was a kid and crossing the Ocean Avenue footbridge over the bay to Manhattan Beach seemed like a walk into another world. I was thinking about that kind of walk a lot lately, a walk into another world.

I like this brief passage because it is so Moe. It is grounded in the geography of Brooklyn and its neighborhoods. There is working class Sheepshead Bay just across a small bridge from the more well-to-do Manhattan Beach. On the one hand he is worried about meeting his commitments, to doing the right thing. Yet on the other, he is dealing with childhood memories and contemplating his own mortality.

Learn more about the book and author at Reed Farrel Coleman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Redemption Street.

The Page 69 Test: Empty Ever After.

My Book, the Movie: The Moe Prager Mystery Series.

The Page 69 Test: Innocent Monster.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause"

Mignon F. Ballard grew up in a small town in Georgia, and now lives in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause, and reported the following:

What an interesting concept! Usually if a book hasn’t held my interest for the first chapter, I won’t make it to page 69, but of course there are exceptions.

Page 69 of Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause takes the reader to the beginning of Chapter Eight with an intriguing introduction involving threats, secrets and a desire to look over one’s shoulder. The reader goes directly from this to a crowded bus filled with servicemen on leave; mothers, babies, and young teacher, Charlie Carr, who is on her way to meet her young air cadet in training for a longed-for evening together. Although I didn’t plan it this way, I think this particular page plops the reader right in the middle of events that consumed the home front in 1943 – with a mystery thrown in for good measure!

Learn more about the author and her work at Mignon Ballard's website.

My Book, The Movie: Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Butterfly Forest"

Tom Lowe's Sean O'Brien mystery/thriller series includes A False Dawn, The 24th Letter, and The Butterfly Forest.

He applied the Page 69 Test to The Butterfly Forest and reported the following:

Imagine not smelling the scent of a pine tree, a flower, or rain for forty years. Page 69, in The Butterfly Forest, is where Luke Palmer's five senses are all engaged at the same moment, a moment he hadn't experienced in four decades. After spending most of his life in a 6x10 cage in San Quentin for a crime he didn't commit, Palmer is released, and the first place he goes is to the center of a vast, ancient forest. It's a place full of birdsong, clear running creeks, blue sky and horror.

Palmer is carrying an worn map, a payback for saving an inmate's life in a knife fight. The map points the way to a fortune buried by the Ma Barker gang before they were killed in the most volatile shootout in the history of the FBI. Palmer is searching deep in the national forest when he's approached by a park ranger who is suspicious and tells Palmer the national forest is no place for the homeless. On page 69, Palmer responds. "I'm not homeless. I'm here 'cause I haven't smelled a pine tree in forty years."

"What's with the steel rod? That some kind of primitive weapon?"

"I heard there's lots of Civil War artifacts, you know, mini-balls in the forest."

"You can't be digging up the national forest without a permit."

The next day the body of a young woman is found in a shallow grave. She's dressed in a gown from the Middle Ages, fairy wings folded behind her back. Sean O' Brien is thrust into the investigation by default when the daughter of a woman he likes goes missing in the same forest. Palmer is an immediate suspect. O'Brien finds reason to believe there's more to the murder than what appears on the surface -- something that nurtures a present terror with a connection to a shootout in 1935.

Page 69 delivers to the reader a sense of the recurring nightmare Luke Palmer has lived for forty years. The taste of freedom, the sights and smells of nature to be swept away again for a crime he did not commit. He's an innocent man in the heart of a forest with dark secrets.

In my novels, I've used issues such as the death penalty and human trafficking to add relevant texture to the stories. Page 69 opens two doors: one is to the inner demons - the post traumatic syndrome of the innocent jailed and then freed. The second is a door to a buried secret and how a horror from the past can intersect with greed in the present and create a dark crossroads to follow.

I hope you enjoy the story.

Learn more about the book and author at Tom Lowe's website.

The Page 69 Test: The 24th Letter.

My Book, The Movie: The Butterfly Forest.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Silence"

J. Sydney Jones is the author of a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, including the first two novels of the Viennese Mystery series, The Empty Mirror and Requiem in Vienna. He lived for many years in Vienna and has written several other books about the city, including the narrative history, Hitler in Vienna: 1907-1913, the popular walking guide, Viennawalks, and the thriller, Time of the Wolf.

Jones applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Silence, and reported the following:

The Silence is the third book in my mystery/thriller series set in Vienna 1900. My protagonist, Karl Werthen, is a lawyer who also dabbles in private inquiries. A fictional creation, Werthen is usually joined in his investigations by the real life father of criminology, Hanns Gross, who yearns to test his investigative theories with actual cases.

In The Silence, Werthen is investigating a missing-persons case: the oldest son of powerful industrialist Karl Wittgenstein has disappeared and Werthen is brought in to solve the matter in the quietest and most discreet manner possible. But this investigation soon morphs into a much larger case, leading to the corridors of Vienna's City Hall and to a conspiracy that threatens the very rule of the aged Emperor Franz Josef.

Page 69 of The Silence finds Werthen just beginning to tug at a loose thread that will ultimately unravel this entire skein of deception and conspiracy. Werthen is often and ably accompanied in his inquiries by his wife, Berthe. But in this installment, she has just given birth to their daughter, and Werthen is on his own. Well, not quite.

On page 69 he arrives at his law office in Vienna's First District to discover a visitor waiting for him: his old friend and colleague Gross has come to Vienna from his post at the Franz-Josefs University in distant Czernowitz, where he holds the chair in criminology. Gross, usually quite bluff of manner, seems restrained today, downcast even, and no wonder. Werthen soon discovers that his former mentor has been impressed into escorting his wife Adele through the Vienna ball season of Fasching.

Indeed, the eminent criminologist has already attended the first of what is meant to be many balls, and he was not impressed. Here is Werthen and Gross's exchange on the matter:

‘Well, I for one think it is damn fine of you, Gross. Poor Adele has been pining to attend the Vienna ball season ever since I first met her in Graz.’

‘Oh, long before that, my dear friend.’

‘And you finally consented.’

‘Relented,’ Gross corrected. ‘And there was the plumiest band of dandies and swells in attendance at the ball. Insipid and bored lower aristocracy with too much drink taken. All they could think of doing to entertain themselves was wager thousands of crowns on snail races. My God, what an occupation.’

But Gross's spirits pick up once he learns of the case Werthen is working on. His time in Vienna will not be wasted after all. And Werthen can, indeed, use the help of this pioneer of criminology. Page 69 is thus a crucial turning point in The Silence, setting our investigative team into action.

Learn more about the book and author at J. Sydney Jones' website and blog.

Read "The Story Behind the Story: The Silence,” at The Rap Sheet.

The Page 69 Test: The Empty Mirror.

The Page 69 Test: Requiem in Vienna.

--Marshal Zeringue