"England Expects"

Sara Sheridan is an Edinburgh-based novelist who writes cosy crime noir mysteries set in 1950s Brighton and historical novels based on the real-life stories of late Georgian and early Victorian explorers.

Sheridan applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, England Expects, and reported the following:

Currently I don’t have a copy of the US edition of England Expects so I am going to use the UK edition. So page 69 is when Mirabelle and her side-kick Vesta visit the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. It’s been deserted and has fallen into disrepair and they are visiting because there has been a suspicious death. A cleaning lady has died in the local Masonic Lodge (she worked there) and Mirabelle has found out that she had another job part-time, cleaning at the palace. Mirabelle and Vesta pick through the overgrown path and consider breaking in but then they are ‘copped’ by a local park keeper who is there to check the grounds once a week. The book is set in the summer of 1953 in Brighton and I had great fun researching it. During WWII the Pavilion had been a recuperation facility for recovering soldiers. It’s the most extraordinary palace - built by the Prince Regent in the 1700s and dripping in exotic architectural detail - as if an Indian/Chinese decorator got absolutely ripped and was given no restriction on budget, just told to go! In 1953, however, Britain was pretty much broke and in real life, the palace had fallen into disrepair - the roof was damaged in a storm. I had been waiting to use it as a location - holding off in the first two books - because it is so stunning and a disused palace is a more or less perfect component for a murder mystery. When I was a kid we had a Victorian nunnery next door and it was closed down around, I suppose 1980. My brother and I sneaked in over the back wall and in a back window. The nuns had been lovely - they used to give us sweets - but we’d never been inside. I used the memories of the long corridors and the artefacts left behind to write the inside of the deserted Royal Pavilion. There is something magical about empty, old buildings - and of course, the electricity is off so the light is eerie. And it’s a palace so there had to be secret passages. I’ll say no more!

The page 69 Test - is it representative of the rest of the book? Hell yes. Mirabelle and Vesta spend this entire book snooping around asking tricky questions in some great locations. They even have a trip to Cambridge in this one - to a college campus where Mirabelle ends up locked in a wine cellar and has to escape. So their approach to Brighton Pavilion is pretty representative. I won’t tell you what happens when they get inside.

Visit Sara Sheridan's website.

My Book, The Movie: England Expects.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Wild Inside"

Jamey Bradbury's work has appeared in Black Warrior Review (winner of the annual fiction contest), Sou’wester, and Zone 3. She won an Estelle Campbell Memorial Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters. She lives in Anchorage, Alaska.

Bradbury applied the Page 69 Test to The Wild Inside, her first novel, and reported the following:

From page 69:

…That hot coal still burning inside me, but it had changed. Felt more like hope smoldering in me now than anger. A feeling like that, there’s two options. You can leave it be and it will burn out eventually. Or you can do something with it. Stoke it. Add fuel. Watch the flames grow.

Take it into the woods, light your way.

Page 69 of The Wild Inside turns out to contain most of the elements that drive the entire book: At the top of the page, there’s rebellious Tracy, making a decision to defy her father’s rules and sneak out with her sled dogs to train for the Iditarod at night. Later, when she does, she’ll make a discovery—there’s someone out there in the woods, someone waiting and watching her family’s house—that will determine her actions over the course of the rest of the book.

Then, after the page break, Tracy is back inside her own head, remembering her mother, Hannah, who passed away two years ago. This is how most of the book is structured, switching between present action and past memory as Tracy tries to understand the secrets her mother kept and the reasons so much was left unsaid when she died. In fact, page 69 begins to reveal the key to that understanding as it describes Hannah’s mercurial temperament—the way she seemed to change almost overnight, becoming depressed and cutting herself off from the world.

Here, too, as in the rest of the book, Tracy’s voice is what drives everything. Throughout The Wild Inside, her strange way of talking—her odd metaphors and grammatical laziness—narrows the sometimes unreliable point of view and challenges readers to ask: Is Tracy really seeing things for what they are?

Visit Jamey Bradbury's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Laura & Emma"

Kate Greathead is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair, and on NPR’s Moth Radio Hour. She was a subject in the American version of the British Up documentary series. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer Teddy Wayne.

Greathead applied the Page 69 Test to Laura & Emma, her first novel, and reported the following:

On page 69, Laura, a single mother, is looking for an apartment for her and her toddler daughter. Like many New Yorkers, she discovers that her wish list (fireplace, sunlight, proximity to Central Park) doesn’t correspond with her budget, and she must settle for an apartment that falls outside the border of her desired location. Set in pre-Giuliani 1980s New York, 96th Street east of Lexington—“Harlem,” she calls it; “Across the street from Harlem,” her broker corrects her—is not a place Laura, who grew up in an Upper Eastside brownstone, ever imagined herself living.

The page is emblematic of the book in that it captures Laura’s sense of entitlement, a result of the privileged upbringing she is simultaneously ashamed of but shamelessly benefits from. It is one of many moments in the book that I imagine will make readers roll their eyes at Laura. As a character, we see things about her that she is unable or unwilling to acknowledge about herself.

Visit Kate Greathead's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Tomorrow"

Damian Dibben is the creator of the internationally acclaimed children's book series the History Keepers, translated into 26 languages in over 40 countries. Previously, he worked as a screenwriter, and actor, on projects as diverse as The Phantom of the Opera and Puss in Boots and Young Indiana Jones. He lives, facing St Paul's Cathedral, on London's Southbank with his partner Ali and dog Dudley.

Dibben applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Tomorrow, and reported the following:

From page 69:

.. my companion'll not eat, nor fish, but has a passion for beans, fagioli, in whatever style suits your kitchen..

I love the idea of the page 69 test. I have never heard of it before.

On page 69 of Tomorrow, our hero and his master (their actual names are not revealed until near the end) dine together in Venice on what will be - though they don't know it yet - their last night together for more than a century, or perhaps ever. Only the reader is aware of this, so the scene has particular poignancy. Our narrator is a dog who must travel through the courts and battlefields of Europe - and through the centuries - in search of the man, his master, who granted him immortality. He befriends both humans and animals, but whereas, in a line from the book, "a person who keeps dogs, will lose many in their lifetimes, (he) was a dog who lost people."

But if he can find his true master, if they can be re-united once again, as they were at dinner in Venice, our hero would find his home once more.

Visit Damian Dibben's website.

My Book, The Movie: Tomorrow.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Death of An Unsung Hero"

Tessa Arlen, the daughter of a British diplomat, had lived in or visited her parents in Singapore, Cairo, Berlin, the Persian Gulf, Beijing, Delhi and Warsaw by the time she was sixteen. She came to the U.S. in 1980 and worked as an H.R. recruiter for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for the 1984 Olympic Games, where she interviewed her future husband for a job. She lives in the American Southwest.

Arlen applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Death of an Unsung Hero, the fourth book in her Lady Montfort mystery series, and reported the following:

From page 69:

‘We missed luncheon because I was teaching Lieutenant Carmichael to plow –the old way with a horse…”

“No luncheon, you must be famished!” Clementine thought her words sounded a bit forced, or even worse, jolly.

“Not at all, Molly sent us out a picnic lunch of bread and cheese. It was delicious –she sent cider too!”

Us? Clementine felt the evening was slipping away from her. What on earth is going on? She couldn’t quite remember this Lieutenant Carmichael who had spent most of the day with her daughter.

On page 69 of Death of an Unsung Hero Clementine is coming to terms with one of the most enduring changes on the home front caused by the first world war: the effect that it had on its women and most of all its young women. Pre-war Clementine’s daughter, Althea, would have been chaperoned everywhere after she had come-out in polite society as she was groomed to marry ‘the right man.’ Now in 1916 she is wearing breeches, driving around the countryside in her own motor car and running the local Land Army. She is independent for the first time in her life and loving the responsibility of doing something useful. She is also at risk as there is a particularly resourceful and cunning murderer on the loose in the local farming community of Haversham. When Clemmie learns that Althea has been picnicking alone with a young officer –not known to her family –she is extremely alarmed, not just for Althea’s lack of decorum at picnicking alone with a young man but also for her safety. Death of an Unsung Hero features Clementine Montfort’s daughter who has been set free from the hidebound conventions of the upper classes by a terrible war. Many of the female characters in the book are young women who work in munitions factories, drive public transport, or nurse in auxiliary hospitals –a considerable change in the early 1900s.

Visit Tessa Arlen's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Tessa Arlen & Daphne.

Writers Read: Tessa Arlen.

--Marshal Zeringue

"If Tomorrow Comes"

Nancy Kress's many books include over two dozen novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won six Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Kress’s work has been translated into two dozen languages, including Klingon, none of which she can read.

Kress applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, If Tomorrow Comes: Book 2 of the Yesterday's Kin Trilogy, and reported the following:

Below is Page 69 in its entirety. Noah Jenner’s eyes are “oversized” because he, born on Terra, has had himself altered to look more like World’s inhabitants. The point of view is Dr. Salah Bourgiba, a physician from Terra:

…cause there. If you have any labs left standing, we might be able to synthesize more.”

Jenner’s already oversized eyes went wider. “You brought vaccine?”

Lieutenant Lamont said, “That’s not our mission. Our mission is to establish relations and return to Terra,”

Salah stood. He was aware that beside the young Ranger, he was short, a little bit flabby, old. He said, “We can’t go home, Lieutenant. There is no means to go home. Vaccines are our mission now.

“We have to save as much of this planet as we can.”

Page 69 is not typical of If Tomorrow Comes in that it is a chapter end and contains only 4½ short paragraphs. However, it is typical in that it contains a reversal of my characters’ expectations, of which the book has many. It also hints at what will be a growing, important schism between two factions on the planet World: military and scientists. I don’t usually write military characters, having no direct experience, but for this book, I researched for a long time, wrote the book, and then hired an Army Ranger to go over it and point out anything I got wrong. He was very helpful.

Visit Nancy Kress's website, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

The Page 69 Test: Tomorrow's Kin.

Writers Read: Nancy Kress.

--Marshal Zeringue

"City of Sharks"

Kelli Stanley is a critically-acclaimed, multiple award-winning author of crime fiction (novels and short stories). She makes her home in Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco, a city she loves to write about.

Stanley applied the Page 69 Test to her new Miranda Corbie Mystery, City of Sharks, and reported the following:

I love the Page 69 test, but this time I’m afraid I’ve flunked it. Page 69 in the hardcover of City of Sharks is actually the division page for Act Two of the novel!

Here’s what it says:

Act Two: The Plot

“The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.”

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, scene i

It’s also got a very nice decorative scroll element at the top, thanks to the awesome production designer of the book.

Now, while you won’t get any clues about Miranda’s state of mind, her investigation of Alcatraz, or her vacillating physical and emotional feelings for Gonzales, you can glean from this page that City of Sharks is essentially about writing.

And writers.

And publishers.

And the many crimes that occur in the creation of crime stories.

Like most writers, I’ve spent a good amount of time not just thinking about the process of creativity, especially in regard to the written word, but about what happens to creativity when it is commodified … about what happens in that dance between the subconscious talent and the conscious craft when it’s forced to march rather than to waltz.

There’s a lot of San Francisco history in City of Sharks—famed columnist Herb Caen steals every scene he’s in, and backdrops include Playland-at-the-Beach and Alcatraz. There’s also a thorny mystery, some ethical questions to ponder about crime and punishment and, as always, social and political commentary.

But don’t overlook the writing/publishing theme. As page 69 tells you, it’s the structure the story’s built upon.

Learn more about the novel and author at Kelli Stanley's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Kelli Stanley & Bertie.

--Marshal Zeringue

"If I Die Tonight"

USA Today and international best-selling author Alison Gaylin has been nominated for the Edgar three times. (Most recently, What Remains of Me was nominated in the best novel category.)

Gaylin applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, If I Die Tonight, and reported the following:

On page 69 of If I Die Tonight, Jackie, the concerned mother of outcast teen Wade Reed, finds herself in a rare moment of calm. It is the morning, and as she makes coffee in silence, Jackie reflects on the unusually pleasant dinner she shared with her two sons the night before – a rarity, especially now that high school football star Liam Miller is on life support, the victim of a late night hit-and-run that many in their small town suspect Wade of having committed. As she readies herself to do the laundry, Jackie realizes the main reason why she and her children shared such a stress-free evening: they’d all avoided the news, the phone, and, most importantly of all, social media – perhaps the most formidable villain in the book. It’s a moment of calm before a storm that proves more devastating than Jackie could ever imagine at this point. It highlights the true danger of the outside world by showing how much safer everything feels in its absence.

Learn more about the book and author at Alison Gaylin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Head Wounds"

Formerly a Hollywood screenwriter (My Favorite Year; Welcome Back, Kotter, etc.), Dennis Palumbo is a licensed psychotherapist and author of Writing From the Inside Out. His mystery fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Strand and elsewhere, and is collected in From Crime to Crime. His series of mystery thrillers (Mirror Image, Fever Dream, Night Terrors, Phantom Limb, and the latest, Head Wounds, feature psychologist Daniel Rinaldi, a trauma expert who consults with the Pittsburgh Police.

Palumbo applied the Page 69 Test to Head Wounds and reported the following:

In the hardcover edition of Head Wounds, a reader opening the novel to Page 69 would be thrown immediately into the heart of a scene as harrowing as it is puzzling. Dr. Daniel Rinaldi, bound and helpless, has just witnessed a horrific crime, whose perpetrator is now gloating about it. The scene reveals both the stunned reaction of our psychologist hero and his defiance in the face of a brilliant though obsessed killer. It also displays Rinaldi’s empathy and concern for crime victims, even when in jeopardy himself. According to his friends and colleagues, this trait is a misbegotten “hero complex,” the result of his survival guilt for having lived through a deadly mugging years ago that took the life of his wife. Though by the end of Page 69 he’ll be released from his bonds, there’s the sure knowledge of more murders to come that keeps the tension simmering. As with all my Rinaldi novels, I strive in this scene for both well-rounded characterizations and edge-of-your-seat suspense. I hope that’s what this page delivers.

Learn more about the book and author at Dennis Palumbo's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Hunger"

Alma Katsu is the author of The Taker, The Reckoning, and The Descent. She is a graduate of the Master’s writing program at the Johns Hopkins University and received her bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University. Prior to the publication of her first novel, she had a long career in intelligence, working for several US agencies and a think tank. She currently is a consultant on emerging technologies.

Katsu applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Hunger, and reported the following:

The Hunger, a reimagining of the story of the Donner Party with a horror twist, is told from multiple POVs. Necessary, because there were a lot of people involved in that original tragedy (and they share the blame, too, for what happened) but because of this, it’s hard for any excerpt to be representative of the entire book. Page 69 does give a nice window into what you can expect. This chapter is from the POV of James Reed, an Irish immigrant and self-made man who becomes the de facto leader of the wagon party when George Donner cracks under pressure. In real life, James Reed was not well-liked; the working-class families that largely made up the party thought him arrogant and condescending. The James Reed in my novel is that, too, but he also harbors a secret that drives his self-destructive tendencies.

Here, Reed is worrying that the wagon party is falling behind schedule, and that his fellow travelers don’t seem concerned about their dwindling supplies. In the midst of his ruminations, two boys crawl out from under a wagon, puking up liquor and when he tries to find out where the boys got it, he draws an unwelcome crowd:

“You ain’t the boys’ father.” This from another of the Donners’ men, Samuel Shoemaker.

“Their father’s probably lying facedown in a ditch himself.” The words came out before Reed could stop himself. He cursed his sharp tongue. He could imagine how he must sound to this crowd, many of them hungover themselves from dancing half the night away. His palms started to tingle. He could feel dirt gathering in his eardrums, in his nostrils, beneath his fingernails. He needed to bathe. “Look, I’m only trying to find out where the boys got the alcohol.”

“Are you saying it’s our fault the boys got themselves drunk?” Elliott said, raising an eyebrow.

“No. I’m just saying we must do a better job keeping track of all our supplies.” He shook his head. He would try again. “We might want to lock up our spirits, for example—”

Tall and angular, always hovering like an ominous scarecrow, Lewis Keseberg pushed his way through the crowd. Reed could’ve predicted it: Keseberg always seemed to be spoiling for a fight. “You’d like to take our liquor away, wouldn’t you? You’d probably chuck it in the Little Sandy when nobody was looking, every drop of it.” He jabbed a finger into Reed’s chest. “If you try to lay so much as one finger on any of my bottles, so help me God—”

If you know the story of the Donner Party, the appearance of Lewis Keseberg should send shivers down your spine. By the way, even if you’re familiar with the Donner Party, I think you’ll find The Hunger will still surprise you. It definitely looks at the famous tragedy in a new light.

Learn more about the book and author at Alma Katsu's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Taker.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Memento Mori"

Ruth Downie is the author of a series of mysteries featuring Roman Army medic and reluctant sleuth, Gaius Petreius Ruso: Medicus, Terra Incognita, Persona Non Grata, Caveat Emptor, Semper Fidelis, Tabula Rasa, Vita Brevis, and the newly released Memento Mori.

Downie applied the Page 69 Test to Memento Mori and reported the following:

Memento Mori is set in the town the Romans called Aquae Sulis – “aquae” because of the natural hot springs that rise there, and “Sulis” because that was the name of the local goddess who supplied them. One of the springs was adapted by the occupying Roman authorities, who poured money into the building of a large temple and bathing complex around it. In the novel I’ve invented some entrepreneurs who have made a disastrous attempt to build over one of the others.

On page 69 my lead character Ruso has just tried to rescue a naked man from drowning in the one remaining “unimproved” spring. This has not gone down well with the man, who was in fact happily communing with his native goddess. Fortunately Ruso, who is married to a Briton – albeit one from a distant tribe – is able to speak to the man in his own language.

…the native said, “At my age I might have died of shock.”

“You might,” Ruso agreed, wondering if this was the prelude to a demand for compensation.

But instead the native busied himself rubbing a graze on his elbow and observed, “A Roman with the voice of a Brigante, eh? We don’t get a lot like you around here.”

“Nor anywhere else,” Ruso told him. “Sorry about dragging you out.” He nodded toward the water, which was now swirling with mud. “Is it good?”

“Your lot haven’t ruined this one yet, but give them time.”

“What’s going on with the one behind the fence?”

The man’s face creased into a grin. “They were told not to interfere with that spring. I told them, my sister told them, their own people told them, but they knew better. Till Sulis gave them a bloody nose.”

“What happened?”

“You can’t disrespect our goddess and get away with it.”

This small scene captures some of the tensions of the story: between the natives and the Romans, and between the religious (who see any misfortune as a sign of the goddess’s anger) and those who consider themselves more rational. Ruso’s British wife has an unshakeable belief in the supernatural, which leaves Ruso himself caught squarely in the middle – a place that’s always interesting to write about, and hopefully to read about, too.

Learn more about the book and author at Ruth Downie's website.

The Page 69 Test: Caveat Emptor.

The Page 69 Test: Tabula Rasa.

The Page 69 Test: Vita Brevis.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Third Victim"

Phillip Margolin has written over twenty novels, most of them New York Times bestsellers, including Gone But Not Forgotten, Lost Lake, and Violent Crimes. In addition to being a novelist, he was a long time criminal defense attorney with decades of trial experience, including a large number of capital cases. Margolin lives in Portland, Oregon.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Third Victim, and reported the following:

Is page 69 of The Third Victim representative of the book?: Yes. Robin Lockwood is a new lawyer whose idol is Regina Barrister, Oregon’s top criminal defense attorney. Soon after Regina hires Robin, Regina is retained by Alex Mason, the defendant in a death penalty case. The police believe that Mason, a wealthy attorney, is a serial killer, but he claims he is innocent. The case is complex and Regina must be at the top of her game to win it, but she starts acting strangely and Robin – who has no medical training and has never been in a courtroom - begins to suspect that Regina may be experiencing the onset of dementia. If she is wrong and she confronts her boss she might be fired from her dream job. If she doesn’t do something and she is right, their client could die.

On page 69, Regina wakes up in her house but her bedroom seems strange to her. She has to get to the jail to talk to her client but she can’t find her keys. She panics and this is the first time that the reader realizes that something is terribly wrong with this brilliant attorney.

Visit Phillip Margolin's website and Facebook page.

Writers Read: Phillip Margolin.

My Book, The Movie: The Third Victim.

--Marshal Zeringue