Rob Hart is the author of The Paradox Hotel, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award that was named one of the best books of 2022 by Kirkus and NPR.He also wrote The Warehouse, which sold in more than 20 languages around the world.
He is also the author of the Ash McKenna crime series, the short story collection Take-Out, the novella Scott Free with James Patterson, and the comic book Blood Oath with Alex Segura.
Hart applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Assassins Anonymous, and reported the following:
From page 69:Visit Rob Hart's website.It may not be the field of war, but the man on the balcony, the other men in the room, they were Triad. They were in the game. The potential for death in this life is assumed. This man wasn't in the game, but he decided to join. The knowledge he put up for sale could shift geopolitics and end a lot of lives. Painfully.Page 69 of Assassins Anonymous finds Mark, once the world’s deadliest assassin and now in a recovery program for killers, in the middle of killing a whole bunch of people! It’s a flashback sequence, to his first official job for the mysterious organization that employs him.
It’s brutal and bloody and I think gives a good feel for what the action in the book is like. I spent a lot of time outlining and designing this set piece. It takes place in a hotel room in Singapore, and Mark has been sent in to kill someone who’s about to do something very bad, but the intel he got was off—there are far more men in the room than he expected.
Cue the mayhem. I wanted it to be cool and slick, but also make it clear how utterly terrifying it must be, to be on the other end of this man’s wraith.
But it shows how good Mark is at his job, and hints toward the things he’ll come to struggle with. Just because it’s not a substance doesn’t mean it’s not addictive. Sometimes it just feels really good to be good at something. And Mark is very good at killing.
My Book, The Movie: Potter's Field.
The Page 69 Test: Potter's Field.
The Page 69 Test: The Warehouse.
The Page 69 Test: The Paradox Hotel.
Q&A with Rob Hart.
--Marshal Zeringue