"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.

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My Book, The Movie: The Ambassador.

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--Marshal Zeringue