series, the Agent to the Paws series and the Jersey Girl Legal mysteries, as well as the brand-new Fran and Ken Stein mysteries. As Cohen, he is the author of the Double Feature and Aaron Tucker series; and he collaborates with himself on the Samuel Hoenig Asperger's mysteries.
A New Jersey native, Copperman worked as a newspaper reporter, teacher, magazine editor and screenwriter, before his first book was published to critical acclaim in 2002. In his spare time, Cohen is an extremely amateur guitar player, a fan of Major League Baseball, a couch potato and a crossword addict.
Copperman applied the Page 69 Test to his latest novel, Same Difference, and reported the following:
When I spent a college summer working in the deli department of a local supermarket, there was a guy working there who delighted in watching the ticket numbers (you took a ticket and were served when your number came up) until he could call out, “Sixty-nine! America’s favorite number!”Visit E. J. Copperman's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.
That doesn’t really have anything at all to do with my new book, Same Difference, the second Fran and Ken Stein (yes you read that right) mystery. On page 69 in this novel, Fran has been hired by a man to find his missing 19-year-old trans daughter and she’s coming up short. That’s not typical for Fran because she’s very tall, and there’s a reason for that, but you have to read the book to find that out. I’m just talking about page 69.
She’s gone to Eliza’s (the woman she’s looking for) apartment with her dad and lying on the bed in her room, trying to get into Eliza’s mindset because she thinks this is an example of a person who wasn’t so much taken as who wanted to be somewhere else, and not answer her phone. And Fran’s not coming up with much:This search was turning out to be a bust. But I needed to know more about Eliza’s friend Rainbow.I don’t know if this page is indicative of the whole book. It’s pretty static and there’s a lot of action in this novel. It does show you something about Fran’s attitude and her tenacity but her humor isn’t wildly on display and that’s a big part of her character.
Having searched the room one and a third times, I knew where to find the one indispensable source of information for a recent high school graduate: Eliza’s yearbook. I pulled it off the shelf over her desk and started to scan through it thoroughly but as quickly as I could. It’s not that easy to pull off but I’m good at what I do.
A fairly painstaking scan of the class found no student named Rainbow, but Brian had suggested that person might be someone Eliza had met at New Amsterdam. I still had Laura Rapinoe’s phone number and I used it, trying not to picture the wince on her face when she saw who was calling.
Give Laura credit: She answered. “I don’t know where Eliza is,” she said. “Did you find Damien?”
Dammit. She didn’t know.
I’d recommend reading the other 215 pages to get a better feel for it.
My Book, The Movie: The Thrill of the Haunt.
The Page 69 Test: The Thrill of the Haunt.
My Book, The Movie: Ukulele of Death.
The Page 69 Test: Ukulele of Death.
Q&A with E. J. Copperman.
--Marshal Zeringue
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