Monday, June 18, 2018

"The Body Counter"

Anne Frasier is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her award-winning books span the genres of suspense, mystery, thriller, romantic suspense, paranormal, and memoir. The Body Reader received the 2017 Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original from International Thriller Writers. Other honors include a RITA for romantic suspense and a Daphne du Maurier Award for paranormal romance. Her thrillers have hit the USA Today list and have been featured in Mystery Guild, Literary Guild, and Book of the Month Club. Her memoir The Orchard was an O, The Oprah Magazine Fall Pick; a One Book, One Community read; a B+ review in Entertainment Weekly; and one of the Librarians' Best Books of 2011. She divides her time between the city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, and her writing studio in rural Wisconsin.

Frasier applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Body Counter, and reported the following:
From page 69:
The camping spot was located under a cluster of trees, in an area few people went. It was a strange reaction, but whenever Jude visited a crime scene that took place in a beautiful area, she felt a small bit of heaviness lift from her heart, almost like visiting a cemetery. She loved cemeteries. Loved the tranquil sense of peace they evoked. She felt that same sense of peace now as she and Uriah stood staring at the flowers and photos, the candles and words of love so many people had left at the scene. It was easy to see that two families and groups of friends were in mourning.

“It’s entirely possible the killer knew the victims and knew they were going camping.” Uriah stood with hands in his pockets, wind blowing his curly hair. His observation, especially considering the remoteness of the campsite, made sense. “The method of a knife to the throat isn’t rare or unusual. And, like the sheriff said, our killer could be a copycat. The coverage of the events here could have given him the idea. We see it all the time with mass shootings.”
This is a pretty good example of the book. The detectives visit a crime scene outside their jurisdiction because they suspect the same killer might be responsible for the strange public murders taking place in Minneapolis. The Body Counter is the follow-up to The Body Reader. I typically traumatize my characters by putting them in horrific situations. These two detectives were so traumatized in The Body Reader that I decided to drop into more of a crime-of-the-week, police procedural mode for the second book because there’s only so much characters and readers can take. The third and last book (The Body Keeper) returns to more of a character-driven plot.
Visit Anne Frasier's website.

--Marshal Zeringue