Raising chickens and honeybees, she draws on her life at her farmette as the basis of her Henny Penny Farmette mysteries.Lester applied the Page 69 Test to her latest mystery, A Hive of Homicides, and reported the following:
On page 69 in A Hive of Homicides, the third novel in my Henny Penny Farmette series of mysteries, two sisters of Paola Varela, who has recently been shot and whose husband was killed in the same shooting, ask for help from ex-cop and farmette owner Abigail Mackenzie. The police have questioned Emilio Varela, Paola’s brother who is being followed and is under a cloud of suspicion, but Emilio is taciturn. The sisters need Abby—Paola’s good friend--to help them convince Emilio to tell cops the whole truth.Visit Meera Lester's website.
Emilio Varela hates the way his brother-in-law Jake Winston (now deceased) has treated Paola. But Emilio is a keeper of secrets, and one of those secrets is keeping him from being forthright with the cops. His sisters believe he could extricate himself from the legal trouble but if he will just come clean about where he was at the time of the shooting.
It is on page 69 that the sisters first arrive at Abby’s farmhouse to beg for Abby’s help. The scene is both an emotional scene and an important juncture in the story since Abby’s response to the women results in drawing her deeper into the web of lies and deceptions that she must sort through to solve the mystery.
If a reader skips to page 69 to begin reading, I think he or she would continue reading to discover what Emilio is holding back and why he’s keeping a secret at great risk to himself. I believe the reader would also be curious about whether or not Abby is successful in drawing out the truth that either clears Emilio or makes him culpable in the death of his brother-in-law and the wounding of his sister.
My Book, The Movie: The Murder of a Queen Bee.
The Page 69 Test: The Murder of a Queen Bee.
--Marshal Zeringue
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