"Dead and Gone"

Joanna Schaffhausen wields a mean scalpel, skills she developed in her years studying neuroscience. She has a doctorate in psychology, which reflects her long-standing interest in the brain―how it develops and the many ways it can go wrong. Previously, she worked as a scientific editor in the field of drug development. Prior to that, she was an editorial producer for ABC News, writing for programs such as World News Tonight, Good Morning America, and 20/20. She lives in the Boston area with her husband, daughter, and an obstreperous basset hound named Winston.

Schaffhausen applied the Page 69 Test to her newest novel, Dead and Gone, and reported the following:

There is so much going on in Dead and Gone that it would be amazing if any single page gave a decent picture of the whole. Page 69 offers a glimpse of the main plot, which involves a stalker on a college campus. Quinn Vega, our heroine’s niece, is a first-year student and she’s brushed off concerns about the possible stalker until now. But when she hears a fellow student was attacked on a dark path while wearing Quinn’s jacket, Quinn fears she may have been the intended target all along. She sets out to find this other girl.

“Oh my God, it’s true.” Quinn’s jaw fell open when she saw the girl’s full face. She didn’t mean to stare, but Zach’s description hadn’t done Sienna’s injuries justice. Her left eye was ringed with purple and there was an ugly brown-green bruise down the side of her face. A cut around her temple had scabbed over, and she had a scrape across her right hand.
….

“I heard you were attacked.” Quinn licked her dry lips.

Sienna gave a slow blink. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Just…around.”

“I don’t know who said I was attacked.” Sienna shrugged one shoulder. “I got drunk and fell on my ass. Ask the campus cops.”

“Did you?” Quinn stepped closer to her, still clutching the jacket. “Is that what happened?”

Sienna folded her arms and fixed Quinn with a hard look. “You don’t even know me. Why do you care?”

“Because you were wearing my jacket.”

Surprised flickered over Sienna’s face and she dropped her defensive posture. “Wait…you think someone jumped me, thinking it was you?”

“I don’t know. Someone is watching me. My roommate got followed the other night.”

Quinn becomes determined to get to the bottom of the campus stalker situation, which leaves her Aunt Annalisa free to pursue some of the other mysteries in the story. Annalisa is facing a tough case: Sam Tran, an ex-cop turned PI was found hanged in a local cemetery, but his personal life is squeaky clean. Annalisa believes his death must be work-related. She thinks Sam uncovered a deadly secret in his private investigations, so she starts poking around in his open case files. The campus stalker is one of Sam’s last cases. Another case concerns a double homicide at a seedy motel, where the murdered couple was having an affair. The third is a missing mom who went to a New Year’s Eve party in 1989 and never came home.

Annalisa believes one of these three cases got Sam Tran killed. But which one? She has to figure it out quickly before she meets the same fate—and, it seems, keep her niece Quinn out of trouble along the way.

Visit Joanna Schaffhausen's website.

The Page 69 Test: All the Best Lies.

Q&A with Joanna Schaffhausen.

The Page 69 Test: Gone for Good.

--Marshal Zeringue