"Murder One"

Robert Dugoni practiced as a civil litigator in San Francisco and Seattle for seventeen years. In 1999 he left the full-time practice of law to write, and is a two-time winner of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a degree in journalism and worked as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times before obtaining his doctorate of jurisprudence from the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law.

Dugoni applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Murder One, and reported the following:

Page 69 marks the end of an important scene. David Sloane, my protagonist is meeting with Rebecca Han, an Assistant United States attorney. Sloane meets with Han to obtain information about a Russian drug dealer his client and soon to be lover believes responsible for the overdose death of her daughter. Han recently had a criminal case against the dealer thrown out on an evidence technicality. She advises Sloane she’s willing to help, but before Sloane can even thank her she gets a phone call advising that the dealer is dead.

I had two goals for Murder One. I wanted to write a courtroom trial book, a criminal case. I also wanted to keep the reader guessing about the plot path throughout the book with multiple twists. My goal was not to provide the final reveal until the very last pages. Page 69 represents the second of these goals, providing the reader, and Sloane, with the first twist. Unlike all of Sloane’s other cases, this will not be a civil action. There is something much more at stake here for him and his soon to be client – life in prison for first degree murder. Critics and bloggers are calling Murder One a cross between Presumed Innocent and Basic Instinct which is exactly what I had hoped to achieve.

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

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue