Monday, September 21, 2009

"Seven Days of Rage"

Paul LaRosa is an Emmy Award-winning producer for the CBS newsmagazine 48 Hours. He won a Primetime Emmy for the acclaimed CBS documentary 9/11, and has also won a Peabody Award, a Christopher Award, and an Edward R. Murrow Award. For sixteen years he was reporter for the New York Daily News, where he was the co-winner with Anna Quindlen of the Meyer Berger Award given by Columbia University's School of Journalism. Maria Cramer is a reporter for the Boston Globe where she covers the Boston police. She has been the lead reporter on numerous crime stories, including the case of Clark Rockefeller, who gained international attention in 2008 when he kidnapped his daughter from a Boston Park and was later connected to the 1984 disappearance of a California couple. She began covering the Craigslist Killer story since the April 14th killing of Julissa Brisman.

LaRosa applied the Page 69 Test to their new book, Seven Days of Rage: The Deadly Crime Spree of the Craigslist Killer, and reported the following:
It's always fascinating to me to turn to any page of a book I've written to see how it reads, if it will hold up, and, now that I've turned to Page 69 of Seven Days of Rage, I'm happy to see that I do believe a reader skimming this page would be inclined to read on or, hopefully, buy the book.

On Page 69, I'm describing the third attack of the Craigslist Killer and, as far as I know, I am the only journalist to have interviewed this victim whom I call Amber in the book. Even if you've read everything there is to read on the case, you have not read this, simply because it has not appeared anywhere else.

The third victim of the Craigslist Killer is a stripper from Las Vegas who was in Rhode Island working the strip club circuit and, in her spare time, making some money in her room giving private lap dancers that she advertised on Craigslist. This was her unlucky night because the Craigslist Killer decided to answer her ad and, within moments of entering her room, he had pulled a gun on her.

Here is her quote from Page 69: "I turned around and he pulled out a gun. His hand was shaking pretty bad. I was scared but I listened to what he said to do."

I think that should get any readers blood boiling for more. A stripper, a killer, a gun. What happens next? Read on, my friends.
Read an excerpt from Seven Days of Rage, and learn more about the book at Paul LaRosa's website and blog.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue