parlayed her degree in English literature into employment waiting tables and singing in a new wave rock and roll band. Exciting though this life was, she eventually decided she was ready for a “real” job, and ended up at Stanford Law School.
For the next twenty years Karst worked as the research and appellate attorney for Santa Cruz’s largest civil law firm. During this time, she discovered a passion for food and cooking, and so once more returned to school—this time to earn a degree in Culinary Arts.
Now retired from the law, Karst spends her time cooking, singing alto in the local community chorus, gardening, cycling, and of course writing. She and her wife and their Jack Russell mix split their time between Santa Cruz and Hilo, Hawai'i.
Karst applied the Page 69 Test to Murder, Local Style, the third Orchid Isle mystery, and reported the following:
On page 69 of Murder, Local Style, Valerie Corbin has just gotten home from her job as bartender at the Speckled Gecko in Hilo, Hawai‘i, and is chatting with her nephew Sean, who’s still up and having a beer while he watches late-night TV. They discuss the murder investigation that Valerie’s been conducting, as well as the next-door-neighbor, with whom Valerie and her wife have been having a conflict over their dogs.Visit Leslie Karst’s website.
Browsers opening the book to this page would get a fairly good idea of its breezy tone and style, as well as the personalities of the two characters in the scene. The page consists mostly of dialogue, so the reader will get to see how my protagonist interacts with others and how she feels about the investigation that she’s gotten herself sucked into. The page doesn’t, however, give much of a taste of the book’s locale, as the scene takes place indoors late at night. And because the sense of place is an enormous part of the story’s appeal, the test doesn’t seem to work too well on this book.
But the main problem with the Page 69 Test for Murder, Local Style is that it is a murder mystery, and thus if you read the book out of order, you can fall prey to spoilers. Which is the case here, for page 69 gives away key information that the reader shouldn’t know without having followed Valerie and her investigation from the very beginning of the story. (Page 68, on the other hand, contains no spoilers, so the test would work for some crime fiction. But I’d beware of using it willy nilly for this genre.)
Coffee with a Canine: Leslie Karst & Ziggy.
My Book, The Movie: The Fragrance of Death.
Q&A with Leslie Karst.
The Page 69 Test: Waters of Destruction.
My Book, The Movie: Waters of Destruction.
Writers Read: Leslie Karst (April 2025).
--Marshal Zeringue
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