The Page 69 Test: "The Sign of Four Spirits"

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than forty books:

clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, the Catskill Resort mysteries for Penguin Random House, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane.

Delany is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. She is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. Delany lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

She applied the Page 69 Test to the newest novel in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, The Sign of Four Spirits, and reported the following:

From page 69:
the salute made him look as though he were performing in an amateur production of the Pirates of Penzance.

Probably not the look he was going for.

“Kind of an odd dining room,” Estrada said as we walked into the room. “No table or chairs?”

The dining room was large and formal and, like the rest of this house, beautifully and tastefully decorated. The top three-quarters of the walls were painted a deep blue, and the wainscoting was white, as was the baseboard and ceiling trim. A glass-fronted cabinet, also painted white, containing glass figurines and fine china, was set at an angle in one corner. The drawn curtains were beige silk shot with blue thread selected to match the paint, and ink drawings of flowers in bright shades of blue, pink, and green hung on the walls. A blue-and-red rug filled the center of the room. The rug was the only thing in the center of the room, as there was no table. Two chairs that matched the ones in the library had been pushed to one side.

“They were moved into the library for the occasion,” I said. “The furniture in there’s also been rearranged.”

“Do you deliberately seek out trouble, or does it find you all by itself?” Estrada said to me once she’d shut the door.

“Considering I came here this evening not knowing someone would be murdered, I can’t claim to have sought it,” I replied as I settled myself comfortably into one of the two chairs. Both detectives remained standing. “Trouble seems to find me.”

“Don’t I know it,” Ryan groaned.

“I hope your date is the understanding type,” I said to Detective Estrada in an attempt to be friendly.

Her eyes narrowed, not looking at all friendly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The Sign of Four Spirits passes the Page 69 Test but only to a limited degree. At first, the test would appear to fail as almost half the page is a description of the room the characters have just entered. With absolutely no context provided, even a reason they are there or why the room is “odd”, the detailed description has no meaning. An occasion is mentioned, but there’s no suggestion as to what the occasion might be, or what has happened there, although we do know that a murder has taken place, thus the arrival of the police.

But, we do get a glimpse of the main character and the premise of the entire series toward the end of page 69. Gemma Doyle, the POV character, is asked by Estrada, a police detective, if she deliberately seeks trouble, or does it find her. Throughout the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series (as in any mystery series) the characters become involved, usually through no fault of their own, in murder and mayhem. Gemma replies that trouble finds her. Which, considering she is intended to be Sherlock Holmes reimagined as a modern young woman, is the entire premise of the series.

Most importantly, as regards the test, the last two lines on the page give a suggestion of the Sherlock Holmes theme behind the series: Gemma deduces by observation that Detective Estrada has been called away from a date. Estrada is surprised and suspicious that Gemma knows what she’s been doing. Gemma is attempting to be friendly, but just like Sherlock Holmes, she sometimes is not entirely aware of how her uncanny perception can be disturbing to other people. Thus Estrada is not friendly in return.

To find out how Gemma determined that Detective Estrada was on a date, the reader must read on.