"The Seminarian"

Hart Hanson is a novelist and TV writer, best known for creating the Fox Television Networks longest-lived scripted hourlong program Bones. He also created The Finder and Backstrom, neither of which lasted as long as Bones to Hanson’s shame and chagrin.

Before moving to Los Angeles from his native Canada, Hanson created the multiple award-winning Global Television Network program Traders. Before Traders he wrote and produced, amongst others, several Canadian TV series, including Beachcombers, The Road to Avonlea, and North of 60.

After making the move to Los Angeles, Hanson started his American TV career writing and producing TV series Cupid, Snoops, Judging Amy, and Joan of Arcadia before creating Bones.

Hanson’s first book The Driver — a crime novel set in Los Angeles — was lauded as one of The New York Times’ Best Crime novels of 2017.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Seminarian, and reported the following:

Marshall McLuhan (and the Page 69 Test) might be onto something!

Page 69 of The Seminarian features my legal investigator, Xavier Priestly, trying to get some info out of his frenemy, Cody Fiso, a literal giant who owns the most successful Security and Private Investigation Agency in Los Angeles.

Priest is doing something he hates and resents: asking Fiso for a favor. Priest tries to brush past that as quickly as possible hoping that Fiso won’t notice.

“I don’t want to waste your time here, Fiso,” Priest said, because Fiso was wasting his time.

Priest thinks that Fiso is wasting his time because Fiso has beat Priest to the punch by asking for a favor of his own. Priest is even more irritated that Fiso doesn’t seem to mind asking for favors.

Page 69 also calls into questions Priest’s ability to evaluate the deeper motivations of human beings in general.

Is Priest as difficult a person as Fiso suggests? Or is Fiso just trying to get under Priest’s skin?

Is Fiso – as Priest suggests – tight-assed and withholding? Or is Priest projecting his own motivations onto Fiso?

If Priest hates Fiso so much (the reader can insert “humanity” in place of “Fiso” in that phrase) then why does Priest feel a burst of pride when Fiso assumes that Priest behaved valorously when he was attacked by a contract killer?

Could these two, underneath it all, actually be friends?

(Again, what applies to Fiso could apply to all of Humanity.)

The Page 69 Test is good! If the reader enjoys the transactional back-and-forth between these two characters then that reader may very well enjoy the book.

Yes, page 69 combines, plot, character, tone, and some of the most important underlying themes of The Seminarian.

Well done, Marshall McLuhan.

Visit Hart Hanson's website.

Q&A with Hart Hanson.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Through a Clouded Mirror"

Miya T. Beck is a native Californian who always had a deep interest in the Japanese side of her heritage. Though she tried and failed to become fluent in Japanese, her studies did introduce her to the myths and fairy tales that inspired this novel. A former daily newspaper reporter and magazine writer, she lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Beck applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Through a Clouded Mirror, and reported the following:

In Through a Clouded Mirror, 12-year-old Yuki Snow escapes the difficulties of being the new kid in town by passing through a magic mirror to meet Sei Shonagon, the celebrated Japanese writer who served as an imperial attendant a thousand years ago. Page 69 lands in the middle of a tense scene at the imperial court. Yuki has just come to the defense of a page boy who has been sentenced to a harsh punishment for a minor infraction by the petulant emperor (the text in brackets is from the page before):

[“Might she also be the stranger in the most recent prophecy?”]

Yuki turned to see a man in a boxy black tunic with a leaf pattern sweep into the hall, trailed by a group of aides. He had the craggy good looks of an aging movie star.

“Which prophecy are you referring to, Regent Fujiwara?” the emperor asked sullenly.

“When the master of divination looked for auspicious days for the Chinese delegation to visit, he foresaw a stranger who would offer wise counsel,” the regent said.

“Yes, that’s right!” the empress exclaimed. “And Yuki is correct. You can change the rules.”

Having the regent and the empress agree with her is a pivotal moment. Yuki has spent the past few months at her new middle school feeling either invisible or misunderstood. But now, during her first audience with the power players at court, her opinion carries weight. One paragraph later, on page 70, Yuki experiences the validation that she’s been seeking:

As the guards released Nobu, he shot Yuki a dazed smile. She couldn’t believe it. They had listened to her. Back home, nobody ever listened to her. Not her mother. Not Julio. Certainly not her English teacher. She felt her shoulders relax as she stood a little straighter. She liked this feeling of being an influencer. Already Shonagon’s world was way better than Santa Dolores.

Unfortunately, page 69 does not include Shonagon, a colorful, witty character who plays a critical role in Yuki’s journey. She appears on page 68. Though I hate to take a hard line like the emperor and fault the Page 69 Test based on a few paragraphs in either direction, those are the rules that I have been given. If I had to grade the Page 69 Test, I would give it a B for this novel.

Visit Miya T. Beck's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Real Life and Other Fictions"

Susan Coll is the author of seven novels, most recently Real Life & Other Fictions, which Kirkus calls “A kooky treasure.” Her other novels include Bookish People, The Stager, Acceptance, Rockville Pike, and Karlmarx.com.

Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, NPR.org, theatlantic.com, The Millions, and a variety of other publications including The Asian Wall Street Journal and the International Herald Tribune. Her novel, Acceptance, was made into a television movie starring the hilarious Joan Cusack.

Coll is the recipient of three recent grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She works at Politics and Prose Bookstore, and was the president of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation for five years. She teaches occasional workshops at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Coll applied the Page 69 Test to Real Life and Other Fictions and reported the following:

Page 69 of my novel involves a flashback to when the protagonist, Cassie, first meets her husband, Richard, more than 20 years before the novel is set. They are both in India for their respective journalism jobs, and they are seated next to one another at dinner at the home of a mutual acquaintance in New Delhi. Cassie describes their instantaneous attraction. She tries to keep Richard engaged in a sort of mindless banter about reflections on travel.

This is not a great page to land on to get a sense of the book, unfortunately. The largely whimsical tone of the book is not reflected on this page, which is more reflective and somber. But it does provide information critical to the rest of the story.

Richard is an unqualified jerk of a husband. He is a self-absorbed, and very handsome meteorologist whose career implodes so spectacularly that he becomes an internet meme. Readers might wonder what it was about Richard that Cassie had once found attractive, apart from his good looks. This flashback is meant to capture the chemistry of this first meeting.

But to get the true tone of the book, please begin with chapter 1, which is set on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and involves a comical scene that has Cassie running along the bridge, chasing her dog who has escaped from the car. The novel is about a (real) bridge collapse in West Virginia in 1967, and the legend of The Mothman. It is also about family secrets, and what it means to be a survivor.

Visit Susan Coll's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Susan Coll & Zoe.

The Page 69 Test: Acceptance.

The Page 69 Test: Beach Week.

The Page 69 Test: The Stager.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Twice the Trouble"

Ash Clifton grew up in Gainesville, Florida, home of the University of Florida, where his father was a deputy sheriff and, later, the chief of police. He graduated from UF with a degree in English, then got an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona. He lives in Gainesville, with his wife and son. He writes mystery, thriller, and science fiction novels.

Clifton applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Twice the Trouble, and reported the following:

Twice the Trouble is a mystery thriller, which simply means that in addition to the whodunnit aspect, there are some action scenes. Page 69 happens to fall on the end of such a scene, in which the protagonist, a private investigator named Noland Twice, is almost killed by a man he has come to interrogate. It’s basically a fight scene set in the cabin of a small sailboat, which is a tight, cramped space and therefore perfect for this kind of sequence. (Elevators are another great place to set a fight scene.)

I am fairly proud of this scene. I think it’s exciting (it was, at least, exciting for me to write, even though I had to work on it for a long time), and it has all the elements of a good action sequence—surprise, shock, and fear. The reason so many action scenes in both books and movies fail is that the reader/viewer never feels the danger intimately, mainly because the hero never really feels it. Never really gets hurt. Never loses control. Never gets desperate. Why? Because they’re too powerful. Too slick.

In reality, the very nature of violence is that it’s uncontrollable. Also, it’s often sudden, unplanned, and devastating. That’s what I was trying to communicate on page 69, and in other, similar scenes throughout my book. On page 69, Noland has just engaged in a fight to the death (almost; his suspect gets away at the last moment), and he is scared, hurt, enraged, and in shock. He’s also a bit crazy, in that moment. So crazy, in fact, that he takes out his pistol with the full intention of shooting the bad guy in the back as he runs away. The lines I am most proud of come at this critical point.

Noland steadied himself against the boom and pulled out the Ruger. Swaying slightly, he aimed at Valkenburg, the gun as heavy as a cinderblock. Before he could pull the trigger, though, another trickle of blood ran into his eye, and as he wiped at it with his free hand, he came to his senses. He jumped down to the pier and ran.

I like these lines because they describe how it feels to almost get killed in a fight, and it makes us wonder what we might do in the aftermath of such a struggle. This is the question that the best books seek to answer: How does it feel? Whatever the POV character is doing or thinking in any given moment, the reader—more than anything—wants to know how it feels.

This is the reason I believe my page 69 is really, truly representative of my book as a whole. Twice the Trouble is not one long, unbroken action scene. But, on every page in every paragraph, I am trying to give the reader a sense of another life. Even in the mundane moments, I am trying to relate how it feels to be this guy. I’m not great at it—that is, I’m no Joyce Carol Oates, or John Updike, or Alison Lurie, or Kaui Hart Hemmings—but I’m trying. Hopefully, I get it right, sometimes.

Visit Ash Clifton's website.

My Book, The Movie: Twice the Trouble.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Escape Velocity"

Victor Manibo is a Filipino speculative fiction writer living in New York. A 2022 Lambda Literary Emerging Voices Fellow, he is the author of the science fiction noir novel The Sleepless.

Manibo applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Escape Velocity, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“Yes, the Altaire is truly magnificent,” Henry added.

Coen bowed at this politely and assumed one of the seats in front of the captain’s command module, a half-moon array of screens that doubled as her desk. The Gallaghers’ casual drop-in with the captain now gained a weighty air. More pleasantries were exchanged, in­quiries about everyone’s shuttle trip up, the typical post-boarding fodder. With a subtle lift of his brow, Henry told Nick what to do.

“Captain, I was wondering if you could indulge me in a small request,” Nick said when he found a moment. “Might I use one of your communications consoles? I’d simply love to make a vidcall to my mother from the bridge of the Altaire.”

The captain initially seemed bemused by the re­quest, but at Nick’s mention of his mother, she was ready to oblige. With a permissive wave of Coen’s hand, Captain Williams left with Nick, telling the two men to help themselves to a drink.

The last time Henry was alone in a room with Coen, the old man seemed cool to his offer. It was in poor taste, of course, this quid pro quo of swaying the organ donor board in favor of Coen’s ailing son, but the Architect didn’t reject it outright. Coen knows how things get done, Henry told himself. One does not get to where he is without these kinds of transactions.

“I’ve given it more thought,” the old man started as soon as the captain’s door slid shut. “And I don’t want to waste any more of your time. The answer is no.”

On the 69th page of Escape Velocity, we meet a few key characters: Henry Gallagher, who opens the book and is one of the main point-of-view characters; his ambitious and conniving husband Nick; and Tobias Coen, the genius behind the luxury space station aboard which our characters find themselves.

In this scene, it is revealed to the reader that Henry and Coen had prior conversations about a certain deal. Henry has offered something, and Coen seems to refuse. Part of the offer is on the page as well: Henry is to help Coen’s son get an organ donation in exchange for something that Nick is privy to. We also see his machinations in ensuring Henry has a moment alone with Coen so that he could keep pursuing the deal.

This deal—and how it unfolds—is pivotal to the plot and the progression of these characters. It is, as some would say, load-bearing. Early on in the story we learn what it is Henry wants, and this is where we see him taking the first crucial (and risky) step to attaining it. The fate of all these characters hinge on the deal, and for that reason alone, Escape Velocity passes the Page 69 Test.

More than that, this scene also reveals much about the story’s tone and themes. This book is about the lengths people are willing to go to get what they want, the price they are willing to extract, and the price they are willing to pay. There are secrets, lies, and schemes within schemes, all told through the eyes of complicated, sometimes unsavory, but always compelling characters. And so, if one happens to flip through the book and land on page 69, they would get a distilled and potent hit of what Escape Velocity is all about.

Visit Victor Manibo's website.

-Marshal Zeringue

"Life, Loss, and Puffins"

Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of more than forty published and forthcoming books.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, Life, Loss, and Puffins, and reported the following:

Page 69 text (very brief text in brackets is from the page before and after):

[“Ru,” she said. “Just the person I was looking for. I’m so, so sorry to hear about your mother.”]

I stopped cold and just stood there, refusing to look at her.

“Who did you hear that from?”

“I just spoke with your aunt on the phone.”

Another freezing slide of cold down my gullet as if I’d swallowed an ice cube whole. Aunt Bitsy had that effect on people.

“She called you?”

“Yes, she needed your address at the Gulbranson’s, so she can come pick you up. I asked why she didn’t get it from you but she said you’re not picking up calls. Which I guess is understandable at a time like this. You didn’t have to come to classes today, you know.”

“Did you give her the address?”

“Not yet. I have to call her back. First I had to come talk to you and make sure you really do have an aunt named Bitsy Milford. I’m not in the habit of telling people where my students can be found unless I know for a fact who the person is who’s asking.”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling that the ice cube had reached my slightly upset stomach.

“You don’t have to call her back. I’ll call her and make an arrangement for her to pick me up.”

“We’ll miss you,” she said, and I saw genuine regret on her face. Which felt odd. Other than Ms. Stepanian, I didn’t know anyone [at the university had gotten particularly attached to me. “And again, my sincere condolences about your mother.”]

I’ve done quite a few of these Page 69 Tests now, and I have very mixed feelings about this one.

On the whole I’ll say no, I don’t think it represents the book especially well. The book is quirky, and this scene… not so much. Without context it feels a bit ordinary to me, and I honestly do not think that’s a word many people would use to describe this novel.

Oddly, whether or not this page comes through—that is, in a way that results in the book being taken home and read—hinges on whether or not the person has read the promotional text. I tend to, but some people make a point of knowing nothing going in. If you haven’t read the brief summary of the book, it seems a bit ordinary when Ru says, “You don’t have to call her back. I’ll call her and make an arrangement for her to pick me up.” Just “housekeeping.” If you have read it, then you know she has no intention of going to live with her aunt, and that, in fact, she’s about to take off with her friend Gabriel and have adventures for as long as it takes them to get caught. In fact, if I could have gone a few more sentences, in the last sentence of the scene she calls Gabriel and says “We have to go now. Not at the end of the month. We have to go today.” That makes it all a bit more weighty and interesting. But alas, it’s on page 70.

The main way in which this particular page 69 fails the test is by not including Gabriel. Ru is my protagonist, my viewpoint character, and quirky and indispensable in her own right. But Gabriel. Wonderful Gabriel. Gabriel is the heart and soul of this novel. And if he’s not on the page, then the page does not represent the book well.

Visit Catherine Ryan Hyde's website.

Q&A with Catherine Ryan Hyde.

The Page 69 Test: Brave Girl, Quiet Girl.

The Page 69 Test: My Name is Anton.

The Page 69 Test: Seven Perfect Things.

The Page 69 Test: Boy Underground.

The Page 69 Test: Dreaming of Flight.

The Page 69 Test: So Long, Chester Wheeler.

The Page 69 Test: A Different Kind of Gone.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Things We Miss"

Leah Stecher was born and raised in Southern California and currently lives in coastal Maine. By day, she edits policy papers for an environmental nonprofit; by night, she writes middle grade fiction. She has strong opinions on tea blends, chocolate chip cookie recipes, and action movies.

Stecher applied the Page 69 Test to The Things We Miss, her debut middle grade novel, and reported the following:

Page 69 is the end of Chapter 8. Twelve-year-old misfit J.P. Green has recently discovered the magical treehouse door that lets her go three days forward in time, and in this moment she is riding high. She’s watching her Pop Pop—who has recovered from cancer—get out of a car unaided, and she’s remembering how much help he needed back when he was sick. His current health seems like a sign that everything is going right in her life—for the first time ever. The page ends with this exchange:

“What?” Pop Pop caught me smiling at him as he got out of the car in front of Thai Dishes.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. Nothing. Just, magic was real. Pop Pop was healthy and Mom wasn’t making me go shopping. “Nothing,” I repeated. “Just happy.”

I started this response by saying emphatically that the Page 69 Test did not work for The Things We Miss. But my mind changed as I wrote out all the reasons why not—and realized that they were actually pretty decent reasons why it would work as an introduction to the book!

The page does not introduce all of our most important characters. However, it does introduce J.P. and her Pop Pop—who is one of the most important side characters—and shows the depth of their relationship, which is a key element in the book. Moreover, J.P.’s relationships with her friends and family and the way that they strain and tear and come back together are the underlying fabric of this story, so a page that excavates any one of those relationships would give readers a clue that they could expect to see more like that throughout.

This page does not tell readers about how the magic works. But it does tell readers that magic is real in this book, in some form or another, and that our main character was thinking about it in the same breath as the everyday mundanity of going out to dinner and dealing with illness. This would hopefully give readers a sense that they had entered a contemporary world, with a bit of a speculative twist.

This page is mostly memories of the past, without context to understand their importance. However, this page does provide a number of warnings of what is to come for any readers who want to avoid books that deal with cancer. Taken as a standalone page, I found it a little ominous, like J.P.’s joy was too obviously about to be cut short. In many ways, this page serves a decent notification that this book may be quite sad at times!

Visit Leah Stecher's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Morning Pages"

Kate Feiffer, a former television news producer, is an illustrator, and author of eleven highly acclaimed books for children, including Henry the Dog with No Tail and My Mom Is Trying to Ruin My Life. Morning Pages is her first novel for adults. Feiffer currently divides her time between Martha’s Vineyard, where she raised her daughter Maddy, and New York City, where she grew up.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Morning Pages and reported the following:

From page 69:

LAURIE (CONT.)

So what’s your news Pops?

LARRY

I sold my place. Nicolette and I bought a terrific house just a few miles down the road.

LAURIE

What? You what? You moved? Why didn’t you tell me you were moving?

LARRY

I’m telling you now.

LAURIE

Why didn’t you tell me before you moved?

LARRY

You were busy at work. I didn’t want to bother you. You’ll love the house. It was just built. Nicolette decided she wants to go into the interior design business, so I bought her a house to get her started. You should see what she can do with a room. I never noticed rooms before. They were all the same to me. Some had couches, some had beds, some had tables, but mostly, they were all the same. Nicolette sees things that should be in a room that I never thought about. She has a vision, which is good, since I’ve almost lost mine.

Morning Pages is about a playwright who is trying to revive her stalled-out career while managing the chaos and complications of family, friends, writer’s block, and romance. Scenes from the play she is writing are scattered throughout the book, and the play is revealed to be a story within a story. On page 69, there is a section from a scene in the play.

So does the Page 69 Test work for Morning Pages? I’d say, yes-ish. Page 69 has the humor and the hurt that readers will find throughout the novel.

On page 69, Laurie and her father Larry are at diner eating lunch and catching up. Larry tells Laurie that he and his wife, Nicolette, have moved into a new house so Nicolette can become an interior designer. Laurie is trying to digest the fact that her father actually sold his house and moved without telling her.

One of the themes explored in the novel is the relationship we have as adults with our parents and the emotional hold they continue to hold over us decades after we’ve moved out, even after we’ve had our own children. And yet, why do we still seek their approval? Why do we regress when we are around our parents? Why do our childhood hurts still sting? And how do we manage our parents’ care with compassion as they get older and needier?

Visit Kate Feiffer's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Reunion"

Elise Juska’s new novel, Reunion, was named one of People Magazine’s “Best Books to Read in May 2024.” Her previous novels include The Blessings, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and If We Had Known. Juska’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, The Hudson Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Alice Hoffman Prize from Ploughshares, and her short fiction has been cited by The Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies. She teaches creative writing at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Juska applied the Page 69 Test to Reunion and reported the following:

On the opening page of Chapter Five, Polly has just driven eight hours from New York and is, reluctantly, nearing her old college campus on the coast of Maine. She has no desire to attend her twenty-fifth reunion, for reasons that are revealed later, and agreed to this trip only because her son Jonah—after struggling through his senior year of pandemic schooling online—surprised her by suggesting he come with her and visit a friend on an island nearby.

The simple beauty of the Maine island is far different from Brooklyn, where mother and son have been stuck in a small apartment for much of the past fifteen months, and from the classically elegant college campus to which Polly is apprehensive about returning:

A quiet two-lane road ambled down the middle of the island, dotted with humble cottages and pockets of evergreens, splashed with sunlight. Behind them, serene coves and wooden docks slipped in and out of view, the water salted with boats and buoys. Polly was an avowed indoor person, but the few times she’d come out there with Adam in college, she’d been stunned by its beauty. It had seemed incongruous that this place should exist so close to campus, and still did; it nearly allowed her to forget where she was going next.

In some ways, The Page 69 Test misses the mark, because so much of the novel takes place at the reunion and focuses on the three friends and this moment does neither. Yet in a larger sense, the test works. The scene where Polly and Jonah arrive on the island is about leaving one place for another, a dynamic that’s revisited throughout the novel and very much at the core of what it’s about: moving from childhood to adulthood, from college to the real world, from life before the pandemic to life after, and the difficulty of ever going back.

Visit Elise Juska's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Lonesome Place for Dying"

Nolan Chase lives and works in the Pacific Northwest.

A Lonesome Place for Dying is his first book featuring Ethan Brand.

Chase applied the Page 69 Test to A Lonesome Place for Dying and reported the following:

A Lonesome Place for Dying is about the new chief of police of the small border town of Blaine, Washington. Someone is trying to kill Ethan Brand; at the same time, the small force must investigate the murder of Laura Dill, a young woman found stabbed by the train tracks.

On page 69, Ethan shows Laura’s father and aunt the body to get an identification. He knows this is necessary to help find Laura’s killer, but he’s attuned to the family’s grief.

Robert Dill stared at the face and shook his head. For a beat, Ethan thought not her, and felt a blast of relief. But then Lorrie Dill touched her brother’s arm, and Robert let out a sob.

“It’s,” he gasped for a breath. “Yes, it’s her.”

“You’re positive?” Ethan asked.

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded to Sandra through the window to cover the face. Lorrie wrapped her arms around the grieving father, tilting her own head up as if gravity would help hold back her tears…

Robert Dill looked like a gate battered off its hinges.

A Lonesome Place for Dying is a small-town mystery with a compelling lead character: solving the case matters to Ethan, and so does survival, but he’s a different kind of detective, interested in human nature as well. If a reader checks out this, and maybe the opening chapter, they’ll have a good sense of what Ethan is about.

Visit Nolan Chase's website.

Writers Read: Nolan Chase.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bad Men"

Julie Mae Cohen is a UK-bestselling author of book club and romantic fiction, including the award-winning novel Together. Her work has been translated into 17 languages. She is vice president of the Romantic Novelists’ Association in the UK. Cohen grew up in western Maine and studied English at Brown University, Cambridge University, and the University of Reading, where she is now an associate lecturer in creative writing. She lives in Berkshire in the United Kingdom.

Cohen applied the Page 69 Test to Bad Men, her first thriller, and reported the following:

On page 69 of the hardback version of Bad Men, my protagonist Saffy, a wealthy and beautiful socialite, tells her younger sister Susie that she’s leaving London and going up to Scotland to see someone. Her sister, typically, jumps to the conclusion that Saffy is going to Scotland for a date and she says to Saffy, “I want you to go up to Scotland and catch yourself a dangerous, sexy man.”

We quickly see that Saffy has indeed gone up to Scotland to see a man. However, she’s not on a date. She is stalking a man called Jonathan Desrosiers: surveilling him from her car, looking through a rubbish bin to see what interesting things he’s thrown away, and secretly following him to his remote cabin, which in her opinion "looks mostly suitable for goats, not people.”

Saffy, without being spotted, leaves Jon to wallow in his damp, dismal cabin, and goes zooming off in her high-powered and expensive car to Inverness, where she pulls up outside a dog shelter. “As I get out of the car, a chorus of barks starts up from the back.”

And that is the end of page 69.

On the face of it, page 69 doesn’t give us such a good idea of the entire book. Bad Men is a serial killer thriller, and no one gets killed on page 69. There are no decapitated heads or blood, worse luck.

However, in another, deeper way, page 69 is a very good indication indeed of the entire book. Because aside from being a serial killer thriller—the story of murderer Saffy, who kills bad men—my novel is also a really deeply twisted romcom. And on page 69, I turn several romcom tropes on their head.

Her sister Susie, who doesn’t know about Saffy’s murderous hobby, wants Saffy to meet someone “dangerous”—but the twist is that Saffy is the dangerous one. Saffy isn’t going up to Scotland to date a man; she’s going to stalk him. Jonathan is in fact her love interest, not someone she’s planning to murder…but you wouldn’t know that from page 69. And as we discover on the following pages, Saffy is going to a dog shelter not to adopt an adorable puppy as a romantic gift, but to pick up an unwanted dog to use it to engineer a strange and dramatic “meet-cute” with Jon. Let’s put it this way: the dog doesn’t get hurt, but she doesn’t like it very much, either.

The dog goes on to become an important character in the novel, and in fact the UK version of the novel has a picture of her on the back cover. Several reviewers have said they get worried about the dog after page 69, but I’m reassuring you again: the dog doesn’t suffer at all and ends up having a great life.

Unlike the many, many bad men who reach a messy end.

Does Saffy get Jon to notice her? Do they go on a date and fall in love? Or does she have to kill him? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

Visit Julie Mae Cohen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Judge"

Peter Colt was born in Boston, MA in 1973 and moved to Nantucket Island shortly thereafter. He is a 1996 graduate of the University of 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 Judge, and reported the following:

From page 69:

I settled in and poured myself a tallish whiskey. I called Angela Estrella.

“It’s Roark,” I said when she answered.

“Any progress?” she asked in lieu of an actual greeting.

“Some. Someone tried to shoot me tonight.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on her end. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Sadly, my car isn’t. It took the brunt of it.”

On page 69 of The Judge Boston Private Eye Andy Roark, who has been hired to investigate a case of blackmail returns home after someone tries to kill him by shooting at him while he’s in his car. While most people would be rattled or at least upset, Roark is upbeat as he calls Angella Estrella, he’s client’s attractive assistant. He tells her what happened, and she is shocked. Roark points out that this is a positive turn of events, that they are making progress. Then he flirts with her and for the first time in the book makes some romantic headway.

Opening the book to page 69 and reading that page will give the reader a very good idea of what the story is about. On page 69 Roark tells the reader what he has been doing for the last few days on the case. That alone would inform the reader that it is a case of blackmail. The reader would see that there is already a suspect but that he is difficult to track down, but Roark sees that as the best way of going about things. The inherent danger of the case is immediately clear but more importantly we see the protagonist’s response to it which gives us a great deal of insight into the character himself. For this book, this would be an excellent test for the reader.

I wrote this book because I wanted to write a story that was a straight up crime story. I wanted the villains to be pedestrian and believable. In other books my villains have been spies, assassins, or elite soldiers, or the crimes involved have been a little over the top. With this story I wanted something a little more grounded and that is why I really like the story.

Visit Peter Colt's website.

My Book, The Movie: Back Bay Blues.

The Page 69 Test: Back Bay Blues.

Q&A with Peter Colt.

The Page 69 Test: Death at Fort Devens.

My Book, The Movie: Death at Fort Devens.

My Book, The Movie: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Ambassador.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bad Boy Beat"

Clea Simon is the Boston Globe-bestselling author of three nonfiction books and thirty-one mysteries, including World Enough and Hold Me Down, both of which were named “Must Reads” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.

A graduate of Harvard University and former journalist, she has contributed to publications ranging from Salon.com and Harvard Magazine to Yankee and The New York Times.

Simon’s latest mystery is Bad Boy Beat, which kicks off a fast-paced amateur sleuth series starring Em Kelton, a Boston crime reporter with a nose for news.

The author applied the Page 69 Test to Bad Boy Beat and reported the following:

From page 69:

that again—she’d confirmed what Simpson already knew. Nicky’s wasn’t the first body on that gun. I guess it’s some satisfaction to know it would be the last.

It’s not much, but it’s a start. I cruise by the cop shop on my way to the Standard but I don’t stop. Wherever he slept, Jack’s probably only now rousing, and with everyone back in their offices once again, I don’t see a place to park. Besides, I don’t want to push Saul more than I need to. I can spend an hour looking up city councilors on the parking lot break-ins while I wait for Jack to surface. Maybe I’ll even try Benny again, now that I’m pretty sure I’m not stepping on Roz’s painted toes.


“Earth to Em.”

Damn it! I sit up with enough of a start that I have to grab my mug. From the eyes on me, I can tell I’d visibly nodded off, right in the ten o’clock meeting. Maybe even snored. But my mug had stayed upright, so I couldn’t have been out that long. Could I?

“Sorry, boss.” Sometimes it’s best to just own up to it. Truth be told, Saul looks worried rather than angry. “I was staking out a source’s place last night and slept in my car.”

“So, what did you get?” He’s not sure he believes me, and I don’t have anything to make my case.

“He didn’t come home.” Borelli, over to my right, ducks his head, but I can see he’s smirking. Ruggle is staring at me with puppy dog eyes. He can tell this is personal for me, and at that moment I hate him. “Waste of a night,” I push back. God help me, I toss my hair. “Most of my other contacts aren’t up at this hour, but I’ll get more tonight.”

“Not by deadline then.” Saul, moving on.

Ruggle is waiting when the meeting ends, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if he’s about to attempt a jump shot. I don’t see myself as a basket, so I do my best to rush by him.

“Wait, Em.” He’s too close behind me to ignore, so I turn with a glare designed to shut him down.

“What?” If the glare doesn’t do it, the bark should.

“I was wondering, do you need some help with the database?”

Now he’s got my attention. I stare, waiting for the second head to appear.

“You know, the ATF database of ballistics records.”

It rings a bell in my tired brain. “Yeah, that’s national, right?”

Yes! Bad Boy Beat passes! Page 69 drops readers right into the middle of Em Kelton’s determined search for a mystery killer and also shows the obstacles – some self-imposed – that she faces.

The page opens with a confirmation: “Nicky’s wasn’t the first body on that gun.” That lets you know you’re dealing with murder, more than one, and that Em has already started to put together her case that the one random street crime that starts this book is really part of a series of planned killings.

It also has her dozing off at an editorial meeting at the Standard, the newspaper where she works, which is for better or worse, pure Em. When I was revising this book, my agent expressed the concern that Em wasn’t “likable.” I countered that she didn’t have to be likable as long as she was relatable (and what’s with insisting that women characters be likable anyway? Should we also tell them to smile more?). Em has some bad habits, and she’s not a model employee. Here, we see her at her worst: not only nodding off but disappointing her editor, all while she watches the male reporters at the meeting with suspicion. Are they out for her or are they allies? Em’s not one to take any chances, and the reference to “Roz’s painted toes” hints that the only colleague she fully trusts is her BFF Roz, a City Hall reporter. But the page does end with another avenue for investigation opening up. I’ll leave it up to the reader to figure out if Em has enough sense to follow through.

Visit Clea Simon's website.

The Page 69 Test: To Conjure a Killer.

--Marshal Zeringue