"A Study in Secrets"

Jeffrey Siger is an American living on the Aegean Greek island of Mykonos. A former Wall Street lawyer, he gave up his career as a name partner in his own New York City law firm to write the international bestselling, award-recognized Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series of mystery thrillers telling more than just a fast-paced story.

Siger applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, A Study in Secrets, and shared the following:

For more than 15 years, virtually every time I released a new book in my Greece-based Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series I’d take The Page 69 Test. And each time I’d be amazed at what the Test revealed. This year is different in many ways, but not in the uncanny revelations of the Test.

Now I’m launching A Study in Secrets as the debut novel in my brand-new “The Redacted Man” series. It’s set not in Greece, but in New York City, and instead of a gregarious, happily married Chief Inspector serving as my protagonist, I’m introducing a Sherlock Holmes-worthy amateur sleuth possessing a complicated George Smiley retired-secret-agent past. Practically a recluse and partially handicapped, Michael A spends his days imagining the lives of the anonymous people he watches in the park beneath the windows of his elegant New York City townhouse–number 221–his every need tended to by his housekeeper, Mrs. Baker.

For decades Michael has taken great care not to get involved in the lives of those he observes until one day he realizes that a young girl he’s watched for weeks sitting alone in the park at dawn faces terrible danger. For reasons unclear even to himself, he makes an uncharacteristic decision to abandon his solitude and help her…changing everything.

Page 69 represents two major revelations for Michael: First, he learns that a colleague’s trusted employee has played a key role in a process that put the young girl’s life in danger, and second, he realizes how a pair of seeming innocents came to possess a priceless purloined treasure that could now cost them their lives.

Page 69 also mentions virtually every “good guy” character central to the story line and one very bad one…leaving many more of the latter for readers to discover. Most significant for me, page 69 captures the essence of Michael’s character––revealing his thought processes, compassion, sense of humor, and decisive toughness whenever the situation calls for it.

Thank you, Page 69 Test, for once again eliciting from me a unique perspective on my own work.

Visit Jeffrey Siger's website.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in Mykonos.

The Page 69 Test: Prey on Patmos.

The Page 69 Test: Target Tinos.

The Page 69 Test: Mykonos After Midnight.

The Page 69 Test: A Deadly Twist.

Q&A with Jeffrey Siger.

The Page 69 Test: At Any Cost.

The Page 69 Test: Not Dead Yet.

--Marshal Zeringue