"Saint of the Narrows Street"

William Boyle is the author of eight books set in and around the southern Brooklyn neighborhood of Gravesend, where he was born and raised. His most recent novel is Saint of the Narrows Street. His books have been nominated for the Hammett Prize, the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award in the UK, and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in France, and they have been included on best-of lists in the Washington Post, CrimeReads, and more. He currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

Boyle applied the Page 69 Test to Saint of the Narrows Street and reported the following:

From page 69:

Chooch opens the back door, and he pushes the wheelbarrow straight outside. No stairs this way. Again, Giulia and Risa trail him. Communication seems less and less necessary. They're following his lead. He's trying not to feel, only do what needs doing.

Page 69 finds the main characters--Risa, Giulia, and Chooch, with baby Fabrizio in tow--in a precarious position, away from Saint of the Narrows Street (their block in southern Brooklyn where most of the action of the book is set), at Chooch's crumbling country house in upstate New York. They have arrived there after things took a dark turn in Risa's apartment with her bad seed husband, Sav. To say too much about this scene would spoil a key plot point in the first part, but I do think that reading this page would give readers a good idea of the whole book. The tone and feel of it, especially. You can get a sense of the position these characters are in, their backs against the wall, the desperation they're feeling, the way they're struggling with decisions they've had to make. You can get a sense, I think, of what's coming in the future for them. The way this moment, this memory, will haunt their lives. This scene is freighted with tension and heartbreak, but there's also dark humor to it.

Visit William Boyle's website.

My Book, The Movie: Gravesend and The Lonely Witness.

The Page 69 Test: Gravesend and The Lonely Witness.

The Page 69 Test: City of Margins.

My Book, The Movie: City of Margins.

Q&A with William Boyle.

The Page 69 Test: Shoot the Moonlight Out.

My Book, The Movie: Shoot the Moonlight Out.

Writers Read: William Boyle (December 2021).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beneath the Poet’s House"

Christa Carmen lives in Rhode Island. She is the author of The Daughters of Block Island, winner of the Bram Stoker Award and a Shirley Jackson Award finalist, the Indie Horror Book Award-winning Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked, and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated "Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell" (Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror). She has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA from Boston College, and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine.

Carmen applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, Beneath the Poet’s House, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Beneath the Poet’s House passes this Page 69 Test with flying colors. Protagonist Saoirse White has just walked from her home on Benefit Street to a career fair on Brown University’s campus. After deciding the career fair is a bust, she goes to leave and literally runs into the man whom she suspects has been following her since her arrival in Providence. Emmit Powell convinces her to join him at a nearby café, and from there, their relationship evolves into something imaginative and intense. The meeting between Saoirse and Emmit on page 69 is the single most important event of the novel.

With that being said, I don’t love the idea of someone using page 69 as the example of my writing with which to decide whether to purchase the novel. Not that the writing is bad or there’s something I would change, but the interaction captured on page 69 is a moment that hinges more on the position of two bodies in space and time—and their coming together—as opposed to rich characterization or lush description. It also occurs at what is probably the least interesting, i.e., the least gothic or historically significant, setting in the entirety of the novel. Prior to page 69, we see the action unspooling in an old library and beside a possibly cursed fountain, at the former home of Sarah Helen Whitman—brief fiancé of Edgar Allan Poe—on 88 Benefit Street and in an architecturally quaint-and-curious coffee house. After page 69, the action takes place anywhere from an underground séance parlor to the secluded corner of an off-the-beaten-path restaurant, in a hotel room shadowed by the poor vision that comes with too much drinking and along the labyrinthine passages connecting H.P. Lovecraft’s Shunned House to other East Side locations across Providence. In short, the decidedly unthreatening energy of a midday career fair at Brown’s Chaffee Garden isn’t necessarily what I would put forth as the best excerpt with which to form an opinion on the novel as a whole.

For that, I’d encourage you to read at least until you get to walk through Whitman’s rose garden and beyond, into the cemetery frequented by Poe and his poetess, nestled beside a darkly Gothic cathedral. A cemetery where, on foggy nights, the tops of the headstones cut through the fog like rows of teeth.

Visit Christa Carmen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Some Other Time"

Angela Brown is the author of Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Real Simple, and other publications. She holds a MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Brown lives with her husband and two young children in New Jersey, where she is currently at work on her next novel.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Some Other Time, and reported the following:

Oh, I love page 69! This is such a tender moment in the text and, as it turns out, it really does capture the main problem, theme, and relationship at the heart of the novel. Specifically, on page 69, we’re closing out a chapter. Shortly before this, the protagonist, Ellie, and her husband of the last twenty years, Jonah, announced to their family (their college-aged daughter, Maggie, and Ellie’s parents, Bunny and Frank) that they’re getting divorced. There are a lot of emotions (and opinions) expressed, but now, on page 69, the chaos and reactions have quieted down, and the reader finds Ellie and Jonah alone at the end of the night and discussing whether or not they’re making a mistake. It's a really honest and heartbreaking moment—one that genuinely brought tears to my eyes while writing it (and still does whenever I read back over it).

I think if readers opened up to this page, they’d gain a solid understanding of the relationship at the core of the novel (as well as a few subtle nods to some of the magical realism elements that come a few chapters later). To me, this scene beautifully shows readers Ellie and Jonah’s relationship – they love and respect one another, and are both trying their best to be kind, but in the end have still decided to go their separate ways. There are also a few lines of important dialogue on this page, in which they contemplate what it’d be like if they went back in time, and whether or not (in terms of their marriage) they’d have done things differently. In a classic three-act structure, I would consider this scene to be the “Second Thoughts” moment of Act One, in which a character (Ellie) has made a big decision—one that will ultimately propel the rest of the plot forward—but now isn’t quite sure that it was the right one.

Some Other Time is a speculative work of Women’s Fiction in which the protagonist, Ellie, has a chance to briefly experience an alternate version of the present day—one in which she and Jonah were never married. As such, it’s very much a book about choices—those we made, those we didn’t, and so on. Therefore, I think that, all in all, page 69 does ultimately pass the test because, really, the whole scene is about these two main characters contemplating their choices and, by way of them, the ripple effect each of them has potentially sent out into the world.

Visit Angela Brown's website.

The Page 69 Test: Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time.

Q&A with Angela Brown.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Tartufo"

Kira Jane Buxton's writing has appeared in The New York Times, NewYorker.com, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Huffington Post, and more. Her debut novel Hollow Kingdom was an Indie Next pick, a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor, the Audie Awards, and the Washington State Book Awards, and was named a best book of 2019 by Good Housekeeping, NPR, and Book Riot.

Buxton applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Tartufo, and reported the following:

On page 69 of Tartufo, truffle hunter Giovanni is in the midst of a bad memory of his father, who was cruel and intolerant of Giovanni’s partner Paolo. Giovanni is roused from remembering by his truffle dogs, Aria and Fagiolo, who are with him truffle hunting in the Tuscan woods. In particular, the page has a focus on his younger dog, Fagiolo, who is gallivanting through the trees happily, whilst utterly failing at finding truffles.

The Page 69 Test really holds true here as we get a sense of Giovanni’s sweet, sensitive nature, and his beautiful relationship with Paolo. We are witness to the grief that is plaguing him as he walks in the woods to hunt truffles—the only place of peace for him. The setting starts in Giovanni’s mind as he is pulled away by the past, but his beloved dogs bring him back to the present where he is doing what he loves—truffle hunting.

We also get a quick hit of humor in seeing the apprentice pup fail spectacularly at truffle hunting, but enjoying every millisecond of his interpretation of it! (“I found a rock! And now a stick!”) Since the novel is about scent, memory, the necessity of community and the magic of nature, I’d say this page exemplifies the novel as a whole.

I’m fascinated by the fact that page 69 introduces us to a protagonist’s plight (grief and the unresolved relationship with his father) but also a portrait of the woodland and a truffle hunt (integral to a novel about a down-on-its luck Italian village and the finding of the world’s biggest truffle which will either be its blessing or its curse!) Page 69 picks up on the poignancy of Giovanni’s predicament, as well as the fun of Tartufo as a loving, funny, charming story about what happens when a humungous fungus is unearthed in the tiny Tuscan village of Lazzarini Boscarino.

Visit Kira Jane Buxton's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Kira Jane Buxton & Ewok.

My Book, The Movie: Hollow Kingdom.

The Page 69 Test: Hollow Kingdom.

My Book, The Movie: Feral Creatures.

Q&A with Kira Jane Buxton.

The Page 69 Test: Feral Creatures.

My Book, The Movie: Tartufo.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Chain Reaction"

James Byrne is the pseudonym for an author who has worked for more than twenty years as a journalist and in politics. A native of the Pacific Northwest, he lives in Portland, Oregon.

Byrne applied the Page 69 Test to his new Dez Limerick thriller, Chain Reaction, and reported the following:

Yeah. I can honestly say that, if browsers open Chain Reaction to page 69, they would get a pretty good idea of the whole novel.

The key element that makes Dez Limerick an unusual hero is that he was trained by a foreign military (ain’t saying which) as a “gatekeeper.” That means he’s dead brilliant with doors, locks, keys, what have you. And that training includes a lot of electrical and civil engineering.

On page 69, Dez is trapped in a convention center that has been taken over by a heavily armed group of terrorists. He uses his electronics training to cobble together his mobile phone and the sound board of a theater to call the FBI outside the perimeter. FBI Agent Stella Ansara tells him that the terrorists have connected explosives to some of the hostages, and the explosives can be triggered from afar.

Dez says that could be a godsend. Because the terrorists have blocked all other cell phone service. “This lot’s not just taken down the Wi-Fi, ma’am. Too many people have satellite phones and voice-over-internet-protocol devices. Means they’re blocking a lot of frequencies, as well.”

When Stella confirms that, Dez replies “Splendid!” All he has to do is find out what frequency the explosive detonators are on. Then commandeer the frequency-jammer that the terrorists are using. Then use their own tech to block the explosives’ frequencies.

Yes, Dez is good in a fist fight. But I have more fun writing scenes in which he finds a brainier solution to his crises.

Visit James Byrne's website.

Q&A with James Byrne.

The Page 69 Test: Deadlock.

My Book, The Movie: Deadlock.

Writers Read: James Byrne.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Her Prodigal Husband"

Becky Masterman is the author of Maternal Instinct and the Brigid Quinn series, including Her Prodigal Husband.

While working as a forensic science acquisitions editor, Masterman got to meet (and publish) some of the most famous people in that profession, and the idea for Brigid Quinn was born. The four novels in this series—Rage Against the Dying, Fear the Darkness, A Twist Of The Knife, and We Were Killers Once—feature this FBI special agent who only in her retirement is finally getting married, making friends, owning Pugs, and trying to fit into the civilian world she always sought to protect for others, all while keeping her book club from finding out she can kill people with her bare hands. Rage Against the Dying was a finalist for the Edgar Awards and the CWA Gold Dagger, as well as the Macavity, Barry, ITW and Anthony awards.

Masterman applied the Page 69 Test to Her Prodigal Husband and reported the following:

The author Alice Einstein had an early shot at fame. Nearly two decades later, faced with declining sales, and ghosted by her agent Frank Schaeffer, she will conceive of a story stemming from the true one about a baby who died while in her sister Liesl's care. In Alice's story, Liesl kills the baby. Alice fights the temptation to write this--for a while. After all, Alice loves her tender-hearted sister. It's just that her lust for creative success is at odds with that love.

This is also a fiction about how the ex-FBI agent Brigid Quinn comes to be a character in Alice's story, a la crime dramas that focus as much on the chronicler as on the detective. In a metafictional sense, Alice creates the character of Brigid Quinn and becomes the author of all the books in her series.

On page 69 Alice has tracked down and cornered her agent at the Tucson Book Festival, forcing a humiliating meeting to find out whether a current idea is saleable. Not good enough, she's told.

Frank fingered the watch on his hand, as if trying to read the time by touch. Then his eyes scanned the cafeteria and stopped at the wall behind me and I just knew there was a clock there. "Well, you know, babe, I think this this needs a little more pizzazz, know what I mean? Something to keep the pages turning. Listen, I really need to hear Noam Chomsky's presentation and it's all the way across the mall. Let me call you when I get back to the City."

I was depressed all the way home, so low I'd have to reach up to tie my sneakers.

It could be argued that in a well-written book every single page reveals something about the core dilemma. Certainly page 69 of Her Prodigal Husband does so. With the backdrop of all the surrounding characters surmounting their very real problems, the driving force of Her Prodigal Husband lies in these questions about the stories we invent: to what extent are the real lives of the people we love creative fodder? What are the results of manipulating others' lives for the sake of a plot? Do we make stories or do our stories make us?

Visit Becky Masterman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Rage Against the Dying.

The Page 69 Test: Rage Against the Dying.

My Book, The Movie: Fear the Darkness.

The Page 69 Test: Fear the Darkness.

My Book, The Movie: A Twist of the Knife.

My Book, The Movie: We Were Killers Once.

The Page 69 Test: We Were Killers Once.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Lethal Walk in Lakeland"

Nicholas George is the author of the A Walk Through England mystery series, featuring retired police detective Rick “Chase” Chasen. The second and newest volume in the series is A Lethal Walk in Lakeland.

Although a native Californian, George is an avid Anglophile (perhaps from listening to hours and hours of Beatles records as a teenager) and visits England regularly, usually to indulge in his other passion, country walking.

Before taking up mystery writing, George oversaw communication programs for large corporate clients including Lockheed, Merck and Nissan. He lives in Pasadena, California, with his husband.

George applied the Page 69 Test to A Lethal Walk in Lakeland and reported the following:

On page 69, my main character, Rick "Chase" Chasen, and his good friend Billie Mondreau, are chatting at lunch with two twin brothers (Pratt and Parker Upton) who are part of his walking group, going across Britain's Coast to Coast trail in the Lake District.

This is actually a good, representative page; it shows how Chase and Billie learn information about their fellow walkers through casual conversation, both on the trail and when they stop for meals. It establishes that the brothers are from Texas. Pratt explains some of the reasons why they chose to take this walk (his sister is mourning her recently deceased husband; his brother Parker is battling PTSD). It also reveals that Pratt's having money problems, as is Billie, and that he is wearing a unique neckband. These are all clues! This page gives readers a glimpse of Pratt's genial personality, which we learn (elsewhere) is very much at odds with his brother's. It also reveals that Chase, though an American, is well-versed on British culture (he explains the difference between American and British beers).

I hadn't expected to find this page that rich in detail, even though it may not come across that way to the casual reader. Of course, as an author I try to make every word and every piece of information count, but that is often easier said than done!

Visit Nicholas George's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Lethal Walk in Lakeland.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Lethal Wilderness Trap"

Susan Furlong grew up in North Dakota where she spent long winters at her local library scouring the shelves for mysteries to read. Now, she lives in Illinois with her husband and children and writes mysteries of all types. She has over a dozen published novels and her work has earned a spot in the New York Times list of top crime fiction books of the year. When not writing, she volunteers at her church and spends time hiking and fishing.

Furlong applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Lethal Wilderness Trap, and reported the following:

I’d never heard of the Page 69 Test until Marshal Zeringue of Campaign for the American Reader first introduced me to the theory. Apparently, it’s the best way to decide if a book is right for you—open to page 69, and if you enjoy what you read, you’ll most likely like the rest of the book. I’ve been flipping to page 69 ever since.

So, when early copies of my new book Lethal Wilderness Trap arrived on my doorstep, I opened the box and immediately flipped to page 69. There, I found the main character, Ava Burke, and her five-year-old daughter, Rose, under attack:

She (Ava) swung the shotgun back to the door and slid her hand over the desktop, her fingers connecting with the phone. The dispatcher was still talking when she disconnected and silenced the ringer.

“Rose, listen to me,” she hissed. “I want you to crawl under the desk and stay there. Do you hear me? Do it now.”

Rose squirreled past her and burrowed herself under the heavy oak desk, its front panel hiding her little legs and feet. v The footsteps came closer, accompanied by a low, guttural sound, like a wounded animal.

Terror thundered down on Ava, twisting in her gut. Her hands turned icy and sweaty as she slid her finger closer to the trigger, her gaze locked on the door …

Lethal Wilderness Trap is part of Harlequin’s Love Inspired Suspense line—romantic suspense with danger at every turn. In this story, Ava Burke returned to Sculpin Bay, a small village on Lake Superior, to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. But when a recent homicide mirrors the M.O. of a decade-old cold case on nearby national park land, a federal agent begins investigating. Soon he links the original crime to Ava’s deceased husband. Ava is thrust into a twisty narrative, forced to defend her late husband’s reputation as evidence mounts against him. In the process, she becomes a target. Now, she’s not only trying to understand her husband’s past—she’s trying to survive it.

Danger lurks on every page of this story—especially page 69!

Visit Susan Furlong's website.

My Book, The Movie: Splintered Silence.

The Page 69 Test: Splintered Silence.

Writers Read: Susan Furlong (December 2018).

Q&A with Susan Furlong.

Writers Read: Susan Furlong (July 2023).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Pro Bono"

Thomas Perry is the bestselling author of over twenty novels, including Murder Book, the critically acclaimed Jane Whitefield series, The Old Man, and The Butcher’s Boy, which won the Edgar Award. He lives in Southern California.

Perry applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Pro Bono, and reported the following:

I think that the Page 69 Test works pretty well for Pro Bono, It gives the reader a sense of the mystery over what has happened to lawyer Charlie Warren's client Vesper Ellis, and what he is willing to do about it.

At the top of the page, Warren has asked the police to come to the house of his client to do a welfare check, and he is watching the officer drive away after knocking on the doors, examining the house and grounds, and interviewing neighbors. Nothing has been found, nothing has been learned, and there are no grounds for the police to do anything else. Warren proceeds to find a way into her house and take a closer look. Vesper had brought him financial records that she believed proved someone has been stealing money from her accounts. He has done a preliminary assessment and agrees. She hasn't returned his many phone calls or those from her friends. Has she been murdered? Kidnapped?

He knows that what he's doing is illegal, and could easily cause him to be disbarred, but he'll take the chance. On the rest of page 69, we learn that he has noticed that there are screened windows on the second floor of the big house, and knows that many people sometimes open those windows for ventilation before the weather gets too hot. He climbs onto the roof to see if he can find one that hasn't been properly latched shut, so he can force it open and search for signs of what has happened to her. We also learn that one of the reasons he showed up and accompanied the police officer on her welfare check was so that the neighbors would assume he is a police officer too, and not what he is--a lawyer ignoring the law. This page, along with others, lets the reader know that there's something that needs to be investigated, and that Charlie is not a person who will give up when someone is in danger.

Visit Thomas Perry's website and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: Silence.

The Page 99 Test: Nightlife.

The Page 69/99 Test: Fidelity.

The Page 69/99 Test: Runner.

The Page 69 Test: Strip.

The Page 69 Test: The Informant.

The Page 69 Test: The Boyfriend.

The Page 69 Test: A String of Beads.

The Page 69 Test: Forty Thieves.

The Page 69 Test: The Old Man.

The Page 69 Test: The Bomb Maker.

The Page 69 Test: The Burglar.

The Page 69 Test: A Small Town.

Writers Read: Thomas Perry (December 2019).

Q&A with Thomas Perry.

The Page 69 Test: Eddie's Boy.

The Page 69 Test: The Left-Handed Twin.

The Page 69 Test: Murder Book.

The Page 69 Test: Hero.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Darkmotherland"

Samrat Upadhyay was born and raised in Nepal. He is author of the novels The City Son, The Guru of Love (a New York Times Notable Book), and Buddha’s Orphans, as well as the story collections Mad Country, The Royal Ghosts, and Arresting God in Kathmandu. His work has received the Whiting Award and the Asian American Literary Award and been shortlisted for the PEN Open Book Award and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. He has written for The New York Times and has appeared on BBC Radio and National Public Radio. Upadhyay is the Martha C. Kraft Professor of Humanities at Indiana University.

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

Page 69 of Darkmotherland contains only a few lines (it’s the end of a chapter), but if you turn the page to page 70, it has one of the most pivotal scenes in the book. Two of the central characters in the novel, PM Papa and Rozy, are engaged in a sexual act.

It’s the reader’s first intimate look at PM Papa, a dictator who’s been talked about only indirectly until now as a formidable and unapproachable figure. This scene is an explosive moment, as it reveals him in a secret, private space, engaged in a “forbidden” act of sex that’s described bluntly—warts and all—with a subtext that characterizes him as brutish and greedy and needy. In contrast, Rozy appears vulnerable yet exercising a strange kind of power over this dictator, something that escalates as the plot progresses, resulting in a radical transformation that’s at the heart of the novel.

So, yes, the Page 69 Test works wonderfully in Darkmotherland. Reading that page, the reader gets a good grasp of the power play at work that’s going to reverberate throughout. PM Papa’s inner life, in contrast to his larger-than-life persona in Darkmotherland, is also captured on that page; so is a hint of potential subversion by Rozy.

Darkmotherland took me ten years to write. It has a multitude of characters, and PM Papa and Rozy are two characters that I had the most difficulty writing. Yet they are also characters, perhaps because of their complexities, I found myself most attached to, ones I felt I needed to get right as I was writing them. They come from the opposite ends of the moral universe of Darkmotherland: one an autocrat with an appetite for violence, and the other whose quest for power has its roots in a painful past. In my writerly mind, however, they deserved equally attentive, perhaps even compassionate, treatment.

Visit Samrat Upadhyay's website.

Writers Read: Samrat Upadhyay (August 2010).

The Page 69 Test: Buddha’s Orphans.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Cross My Heart"

Megan Collins is the author of Cross My Heart, Thicker Than Water, The Family Plot, Behind the Red Door, and The Winter Sister. She received her B.A. in English and Creative Writing from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and she holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Boston University. She teaches creative writing and is Managing Editor of 3Elements Review. A Pushcart Prize and two-time Best of the Net nominee, her poetry and short fiction have appeared in many print and online journals. She lives in Connecticut.

Collins applied the Page 69 Test to Cross My Heart and reported the following:

This is page 69 of Cross My Heart, which includes a text exchange between two characters:

I’m expecting an immediate, emphatic answer: Omg that’s insane, my co-worker LOVES him. Instead, Edith responds with three surprised-face emojis before typing again.

Wowwwww I have not seen that. I think
my co-worker said she doesn’t like him
though.

Wait, really? Why not?

I’m not sure. Something about bad
vibes? It was a while ago.

Well, that’s not much of a reason. But this vague answer presents a good opportunity.

Do you think you could connect
me with her? So I could ask her
myself?

Why, are you like…
investigating him? lol

I hesitate only a second before crafting a lie with just enough truth.

A friend of mine has actually
started talking to him after
meeting him online. They’ve only
seen each other once so far, so
it’s definitely early, but if he’s got
bad vibes…I don’t know. Makes
me want to find out more haha

I watch as Edith’s ellipsis appears. Oh, she says after a while, an answer so curt that I worry my request seems crazy. It’s not that I even care about Morgan’s supposedly “bad vibes.”

I’m actually a little astounded at how well this page gives a snapshot of the entire book. One of the most obvious elements of the story that it shows is the structure. Cross My Heart contains a lot of text messages, emails between characters, web messages, DMs, even a few voicemail transcripts, so this page introduces that format nicely. It also shows a couple crucial things about the protagonist, Rosie: (1) she’s not against bending the truth just a little bit to get what she wants (she’s a romantic and an idealist, and she thinks sometimes you just need to give fate a little push, even if others might side-eye you for it); (2) at the same time, she’s sensitive to people thinking she’s crazy, a trigger she developed after the ex who dumped her in her wedding dress called her that very word. This page also shows that she’s trying to get information on a man named Morgan, which is something Rosie spends the first half of the novel doing, if only to prove that the man she’s falling for does not have a sinister past.

I honestly can’t think of a better page to give the reader a taste of this book! But in case they want a little more: it’s a thriller that my editor has been pitching as You’ve Got Mail by way of Gillian Flynn, and I like to say it’s about a woman who fervently believes she’s living a romcom—only to discover it’s actually a thriller. It’s my wildest and twistiest book yet, and I’m so excited for readers to meet Rosie!

Visit Megan Collins's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Family Plot.

The Page 69 Test: Thicker Than Water.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime"

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than forty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, the Catskill Resort mysteries for Penguin Random House, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane.

Delany is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. She is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. Delany lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Delany applied the Page 69 Test to her tenth Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery, The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“Oh, yes. Once we were inside, he exclaimed over absolutely everything.” She chuckled. “I was at the exit, checking up on the news on my phone, while he was still reading every word on every plaque and marker.”

A woman inadvertently shoved the wheel of a baby buggy against my shin. “Sorry,” she mumbled. The toddler holding on to the handles of the buggy began to cry. “Sorry,” the mother said again. She gave me a tired grimace, and I smiled in reply.

We got off at Embankment station and walked the short distance to the bookshop. The area wasn’t quite as busy as it can get in the summer, but it was still packed with tourists taking selfies, browsing the shops, wandering the narrow streets heading for Trafalgar Square and the galleries. “I’d like to have lunch at St. Martin-in-the-Fields again one day,” Jayne said. “The crypt is so cool.”

“Let’s keep that in mind,” I said. “If time permits.”

“We’ll have to go while Andy’s away. He’ll want to read every word on every gravestone, and we’ll never get out of there.”

Foot traffic was moving at its normal pace outside Trafalgar Fine Books. Police tape was stretched across the door, but that section of Villers Street was no longer blocked off. A single uniformed cop stood outside the shop, guarding the entrance, looking almost as bored as I would have if I’d gone on the men’s fishing expedition. Jayne and I stood on the other side of the street, watching. A few people glanced at the tape and the officer and tried to peer in the windows, but most paid no attention. Londoners can be a single-minded lot.

I could see some movement inside but not well enough to make out who it was or what they were doing.

“In for a penny,” I said to Jayne, “in for a pound. Let’s see what we can see.” We crossed the street.

“Good afternoon,” I said to the constable at the front door. “Is DI Patel around?”

He eyed me warily. “Who wants to know?”

“My name is Gemma Doyle, and this is my friend and colleague Jayne Wilson.”

The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime passes the Page 69 Test with flying colours.

The book takes place in England, rather than the usual setting for this series of Cape Cod, and that is clear in this section, beginning with mention of Embankment Station, Trafalgar Square, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. If that’s not enough of a clue, Londoners are named.

They may be in London, but it is clear that this is a contemporary-set novel, as the one of the characters refers to checking the news on her phone.

Obviously a crime of some sort has happened – police tape around the entrance, an officer guarding the door. Equally obviously, our main characters, Gemma and Jayne, are not police officers, as the reader can tell from their movements that they have no authority here.

The mood of a cozy mystery is set: the two women are obviously friends as they chat in a lighthearted way about a mutual friend. In addition, they are interested in whatever has happened in the bookstore, although the reader doesn’t know, from reading this page alone, what that might have been. Serious enough, at any rate, that part of the street was blocked off earlier and they are inquiring if the Detective Inspector in charge of the case is sill there.

I cheated ever so slightly here, by including the first line of page 70. This is a Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery, and the character of Gemma Doyle, the protagonist, is intended to be my interpretation of Sherlock Holmes as a modern young woman. Her introduction of Jayne to the uniformed police officer, as ”my friend and colleague,” is a clear reference to the Sherlock Holmes Canon, as Holmes often called Dr. Watson, his ‘friend and colleague.”

If you sneak in the first line of page 70, The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime, passes the Page 69 Test easily.

Visit Vicki Delany's website, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

The Page 69 Test: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.

The Page 69 Test: A Scandal in Scarlet.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in a Teacup.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (September 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Deadly Summer Nights.

The Page 69 Test: The Game is a Footnote.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2023).

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Sign of Four Spirits.

The Page 69 Test: A Slay Ride Together With You.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Note"

Alafair Burke is the Edgar-nominated, New York Times best-selling author of over one dozen novels of suspense, including The Ex, The Wife, The Better Sister, and Find Me, and coauthor of the best-selling Under Suspicion series. A former prosecutor, she is now a professor of criminal law. She recently served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and was the first woman of color to be elected to that position.

Burke applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Note, and reported the following:

The Page 69 Test does not work very well for The Note. But check out page 99:

It had been two days since May had been back in the city, and with each passing hour seemed possible she would never have to think about David Smith or the whole parking space incident ever again.

But when Joe, the swing-shift doorman, called up to say that two police officers were in the lobby for her, that cocktail napkin left on a windshield was the first thing she thought of.

“Did they say what it’s about?”

“Nah, I don’t ask questions, you know?” Joe said. “Especially when it comes to the NYPD. Figured they’re working on one of your cases. Want me to ask?”

Joe obviously assumed she was still at the District Attorney’s Office. It’s not as if she sent out a memo to the entire building about the change in her résumé.

“No, it’s all good, Joe. Send them up.”

She had already pulled her Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt over her head and was slipping on a bra when Josh followed her into the bedroom, trailed by Gomez. “Are we having people over? I didn’t see anything on the calendar.”

“Nothing scheduled.” They had begun sharing their calendars with each other after the official engagement. She was still getting used to the idea that he was aware of how she spent each minute of her time, even when they were apart. “I guess the police are here to see me about something.”

She headed for the roller bag, open on the upholstered bench at the foot of the bed, still unpacked. Pre-2020 May would have had the empty suitcase tucked neatly away within fifteen minutes of coming home. She pulled out her black shirt-dress while she untied the drawstring of her running shorts with her free hand.

“What about?” Josh asked.

“No clue,” she said, fumbling with the buttons of the dress. She paused in front of the full-length mirror next to the closet door and smoothed her hair into place. But I do have a clue, she thought. I have a terrible feeling that I know exactly what this is about.

I love this excerpt from page 99 of The Note. It gives the reader a good look at the anxiety hanging over May Hanover’s head after she and her friends Kelsey and Lauren had a practical joke go terribly wrong during a girls’ weekend in East Hampton. These few short paragraphs say so much:

- Two days after returning to the city, May is eager to leave the weekend’s trouble in the past, but it has clearly followed her home. The former prosecutor now has cops asking questions at her own door.
- May likes her privacy. No need to correct Joe the doorman about her change in employment, and she doesn’t like the idea of a second set of of eyes on her calendar—even if the eyes belong to her fiancé, Josh.
- May is no longer as tidy as she appeared to be a few years ago, both literally and figuratively.
- And most importantly, May is keeping secrets. If she’s hiding the truth from Josh, what other lies is she telling?
- Bonus points for the cameo from May’s adorable pug, Gomez. If he were a real dog, I would totally adopt him.

This short excerpt sets the stage for some big twists and turns still coming for May, Kelsey, and Lauren.

Visit Alafair Burke's website.

The Page 69 Test: Dead Connection.

The Page 69 Test: Angel’s Tip.

The Page 69 Test: 212.

The Page 69 Test: All Day and a Night.

The Page 69 Test: The Ex.

The Page 69 Test: The Wife.

The Page 69 Test: The Better Sister.

Q&A with Alafair Burke.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf"

Isa Arsén is a certified bleeding heart based in South Texas, where she lives with her spouse and a comically small dog.

Her work has been featured in Stone of Madness Press, The McNeese Review, and several independent anthologies and audiovisual projects. Her novels include Shoot the Moon (2023), and the new midcentury drama, The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf.

Arsén applied the Page 69 Test to The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf and reported the following:

On page 69, Margaret is mid-argument with her director Ezra -- he has decided to cut her from his theater company in the wake of a messy public meltdown she experienced backstage, and she is attempting to plead her case to stay on:

"Probation," Ezra said, easy as anything, removing his pince-nez to fiddle them idly between his fingers. "Protracted."

"Replaced," I repeated, tasting the depths of its cruelty for the first time.

Ezra held in a sigh and canted his eyes up at me in exasperation. "You aren't in any fit state to perform, Margot. You have to see that."

My stitches had been removed the week prior. I applied a vitamin salve twice a day to the skinny red lines; the nurses told me it would work wonders -- See here, one said as she lifted the edge of her blouse, I had my appendix out and now you can barely tell. I was back to routine with Wesley, lunch at our favorite cafe three times a week and going with him to parties again with my new rotation of evening gloves.

I was alright. I was alive. I could forget this ever happened and move on.

But none of that mattered if I couldn't work.

I think this is a surprisingly good litmus of the book's main conflicts all bundled together. The reader is able to pick up on the relationship between Margaret and Ezra, understand that this comes after the breakdown hinted at on the jacket copy, and get a taste of how Margaret moves through the world: eager to move past (or straight-up ignore) her weaknesses, and determined to obey the pull of her ambition come hell or high water despite her own imbalances.

Visit Isa Arsén's website.

Q&A with Isa Arsén.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ocean Drive"

Sam Wiebe is an award-winning and best-selling author of Pacific Northwest crime fiction.

His Wakeland series includes Invisible Dead, Cut You Down, Hell and Gone, Sunset and Jericho, and the upcoming Wrath of Exiles. The series has been praised for its authenticity and social realism. He’s also the author of Ocean Drive, Last of the Independents, Never Going Back, and A Lonesome Place for Dying under the pen name Nolan Chase.

Wiebe applied the Page 69 Test to Ocean Drive and reported the following:

From page 69:

“Ivan’ll be by your place in twenty minutes. You got a bat?”

“Like for softball?”

More laughing, “For softball, yeah. That’s good. Our team plays a lot of night games.”

Cam was out of bed and dressed, guzzled an energy drink, dumped the ID out of his wallet. He waited ten minutes, thinking where he could get a baseball bat at two in the morning.

Page 69 of Ocean Drive captures the lurking violence and uncertainty of the novel, but not it’s scope. Cameron Shaw, one of the two main characters, is being drawn into a world of gang violence and criminal conspiracies. A test is coming up, and all he knows is that it will involve someone getting hurt.

Cam’s story intertwines with the other main character, Meghan Quick, the small town cop who’s unravelling this conspiracy. Meghan doesn’t factor on this page, but as Cam gets deeper into this world, she becomes his adversary—and possibly the only one who can save him.

Visit Sam Wiebe's website.

My Book, The Movie: Invisible Dead.

The Page 69 Test: Invisible Dead.

The Page 69 Test: Cut You Down.

Q&A with Sam Wiebe.

The Page 69 Test: Hell and Gone.

Writers Read: Sam Wiebe (March 2022).

My Book, The Movie: Hell and Gone.

My Book, The Movie: Sunset and Jericho.

Writers Read: Sam Wiebe (April 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Sunset and Jericho.

--Marshal Zeringue