
Falco applied the Page 69 Test to Blood on the Vine and reported the following:
Well, consider me officially sold on the Page 69 Test.Visit J.T. Falco's website.
My first novel, Blood on the Vine, is a mystery about a series of dark and twisted murders that take place in one of the most glamorous places on the planet: Napa Valley. It’s about long-held family secrets, a woman’s attempt to piece back together a shattered life, and of course…wine. And at least the first two elements are explored rather clearly on page 69.
In the excerpt below, you’ll see a conversation between our heroine, FBI Agent Lana Burrell, and the one-time love of her life, Jonah Bancroft — the high school boyfriend who she let slip away because of a personal tragedy when she was a teenager. Now, they’ve been thrust back together for the first time in twenty years because of two murders that seem to implicate his mother, one of the most successful winemakers in Napa.“Jonah, if you know something about these murders—”I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a helpful window into Lana’s character, but from a plot perspective, you really can’t ask for much more. Right there we have mention of our murders, our chief suspect, and the first subtle tease of something darker at play in Napa: a subplot involving a cult and the peculiarities of biodynamic farming that turn a simple murder investigation into something far more sinister and unexpected. Honestly, I doubt there’s another page in the entire book that teases the murder mystery quite so well.
“I don’t,” he says with an earnest look I remember well and can’t help but trust. “But I do know my mom’s gotten caught up with certain people who don’t necessarily have her best interests at heart.”
“What people?”
“Bad people.” But before he can say another word, his phone buzzes in his pocket, a valve that instantly releases the pressure building in our conversation. He eagerly checks it: “It’s Keri,” he explains as he types a text back to her. “Cole’s been going through some stuff lately, and he can be a lot when we try to eat out.”
“Go. Dad duty calls.”
He nods appreciatively and starts to leave, when one last urgent thought sends him whirling back around to face me. “Just promise you’ll be careful.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve handled a lot worse than anything this place can throw at me.”
He swallows nervously, and again I see that desperate desire to share some painful secret. “I wish that were true, Lana. I really do.”
“Jonah, what aren’t you telling me? Who are these bad people you’re so scared of?”
He falls silent, taking a moment to choose his words with life-affirming precision, as if a single wrong syllable could spell death for him, or me, or possibly both. Finally, he glances back at the bar and lowers his voice to a paranoid whisper. “Have you noticed how many days passed between the two murders?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it. A month?”
“Not exactly…”
As for what page 69 doesn’t do — well, it doesn’t mention the second most important “character” in the book: wine. Because at its core, this isn’t just a murder mystery. It’s an exploration of a unique and fascinating industry, as well as all the ways that wine is a metaphor for personal growth and change. After all, the more a vine struggles – the more you deprive it of water – the more complex and delicious a wine it produces. And the same goes for all of us as people. It’s our struggles that make us great, so long as we find ways to let them fuel us rather than hold us back. But of course, those are big ideas that take far more than a single page to unpack, so hopefully anyone intrigued by Page 69 will give the full book a chance to find out more.
--Marshal Zeringue