Rhode Island and a 24-year veteran of the Army Reserve with deployments to Kosovo and Iraq. He is a police officer in a New England city and the married father of two boys.
Colt applied the Page 69 Test to his new Andy Roark mystery, The Ambassador, and reported the following:
Page 69 of my new Andy Roark story finds him in a poor part of a poor town on the waterfront. Andy is looking for the prime suspect in his new case. He stops into a diner looking for information about his suspect who lives above it. Andy is a foodie and fans love the descriptions of the meals he has. I wanted to describe him having a bad meal. I also wanted to use that bad meal to underscore the shabbiness of the town he is in. It is a seedy place for his suspect to hide out in.Visit Peter Colt's website.The food came. The toast had been in the toaster too long and had been scraped off to make it look presentable. The home fries alternated between overcooked or soggy. The omelet had three pieces of green pepper, a lot of onion and four cubes of SPAM.Page 69 of The Ambassador while emblematic of the writing doesn't give the reader much in terms of what the story is about. It is more of an "atmosphere" than a "plot" page. It does give some insight into the protagonist and his studied, "take life as it comes" attitude. After his time in Vietnam Andy has a hard time getting worked up about anything. Even when he is in a dangerous situation or facing a villain he is very calm. The fact that the meal is so terrible is just a footnote in his day whereas for many people it would require complaining to the waitress or might put their day in a negative light. For Andy it is just part of the ebb and flow of life.
The Page 69 Test: Back Bay Blues.
Q&A with Peter Colt.
The Page 69 Test: Death at Fort Devens.
My Book, The Movie: The Ambassador.
--Marshal Zeringue
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