"Them Without Pain"

Chris Nickson is the author of eleven Tom Harper mysteries, eight highly acclaimed novels in the Richard Nottingham series, and seven Simon Westow mysteries. He is also a well-known music journalist. He lives in his beloved Leeds.

Nickson applied the Page 69 Test to the newest Simon Westow mystery, Them Without Pain, an reported the following:

Page 69 of Them Without Pain doesn’t offer the reader any insight into the main plot of the book. However, it does provide the first crucial insight into the subplot, about a strange, dangerous newcomer who’s latched on to a beggar that Jane, one of the main characters, likes. The beggar is an old soldier, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, a man with a wooden leg who’s sometimes given her information she can use as an assistant to Simon Westow, the thief-taker.

There are other street people who watch and learn things, many of them the homeless children who gather together for protection, looked after by Sally, another girl who works for Westow. Jane, who grew up on the streets, wants to discover what they’ve learned. But finding them can be difficult.

The homeless made their camps where they could. They chose empty buildings that would soon be demolished before factories started to rise from their ashes. But there was nobody in the spots she used to know. Jane wandered along the river. Ten minutes passed before she felt someone watching her. She drew out of sight into the entrance of a court, pulling out the knife and holding it down by her side. She was surprised: no worry, only the sense of anticipation. A small figure stood in the gloom. ‘Sally says you’re to come along with me.’ She put the weapon back in her pocket and followed. The girl skipped along, as if she was playing a game. They passed Cavalier Hill, then took a track that led towards the river. Jane smelled the smoke of a bonfire and started to pick out the silhouettes. She’d entered Sally’s kingdom, a shifting place the girl visited as often as she could. ‘They saw you right away,’ she said. ‘They haven’t used those old places in months.’ ‘I wanted them to find me.’ She turned her head towards the group gathered by the fire; even on a warm night, the blaze felt like comfort and safety. Boys, girls, men, women, from four years old to twenty. Some sleeping, others talking softly. Nothing had really changed from the years she’d lived this way, Jane thought; it simply felt like another age now. Maybe it would stay this way until the end of time. She was aware that many of them were observing her. ‘Have they come up with anything on the man with Dodson?’ ‘His name’s John,’ Sally told her. ‘None of them have heard him called more than that. No surname. He arrived in Leeds a few days ago. They’re scared of him.’

It's a page of background, of information, of the atmosphere of Leeds in 1825, and what life was like for these feral kids. The sense of place can be as important as the events, helping to transport the reader into the book; certainly for me it’s always been vital. An idea that life is dangerous, and often brief for the poor and the powerless. This is a page that focuses on the utterly powerless.

While it does nothing to further the book’s main story, page 69 does offer the first step in unmasking a very deadly character; that makes it important.

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--Marshal Zeringue