"Another Man's Ground"

Claire Booth is a former true crime writer, ghostwriter, and reporter. She lives in California. The Branson Beauty, featuring Sheriff Hank Worth, is her first novel.

Booth applied the Page 69 Test to Another Man's Ground, the second Sheriff Hank Worth Mystery, and reported the following:

A critical chapter ends on page 69 with these last five lines. It’s a text conversation between the two main characters. Sheila Turley is the chief deputy of the Branson County Sheriff’s Department and she’s at a crime scene. She texts her boss, Sheriff Hank Worth, while he’s stuck at a campaign luncheon.

At John Doe site in the woods.

He pretended to drop his napkin and texted her back as he bent to retrieve it.

Another what?

He straightened and waited for her response.

Body. It’s a kid.

What’s revealed in this conversation is a key turning point in the novel. Crime intrudes on Hank’s campaign for sheriff, and it’s an election he has to win or else he’ll be out of law enforcement job all together. But he hates politics and he’s been looking for any excuse to get out of campaigning, so he seizes on Sheila’s text and the impossibly difficult criminal investigation that follows. With his attention split between the two tasks, will he succeed at either one?

Visit Claire Booth's website.

My Book, The Movie: Another Man's Ground.

--Marshal Zeringue