"The Delivery"

Andrew Welsh-Huggins, a son of the Finger Lakes, a Kenyon College graduate, and now a longtime Ohio resident, is the author of more than a dozen crime novels and multiple short stories.

Welsh-Huggins’s new book in the Mercury Carter thriller series, The Delivery, was selected by CrimeReads as one of the most anticipated thrillers, mysteries, and crime novels of 2026, while the first book in the series, The Mailman, was named one of the best mysteries of 2025 by Library Journal.

Welsh-Huggins's 2023 stand-alone crime novel, The End of the Road, was named one of the best thrillers of the first half of 2023 by Library Journal. Kirkus called it “A crackerjack crime yarn chockablock with miscreants and a supersonic pace.”

Welsh-Huggins is also the author of the Shamus Award-nominated Andy Hayes private eye series featuring a former Ohio State and Cleveland Browns quarterback turned private eye, including the most recent book, Sick to Death, which Deadly Pleasures Magazine called, " … a solid p.i. novel with likeable characters, realistic situations and good detection."

The author applied the Page 69 Test to The Delivery with the following results:

Page 69 of The Delivery is told from the point of view of Randy Carmichael, a Providence, Rhode Island, grifter, who is obsessing as he often does about the cost of long-term care needed by his daughter, Michelle, who was left permanently disabled by a swimming pool accident as a child. Randy has cooked up a healthcare fraud con with his wife, fellow criminal Monica Carmichael, and he needs every penny from the scheme for the medical assistance required by Michelle. The page also introduces a major thorn in Randy’s side, a mafia wannabe named Pauley Carnivale, who has inadvertently stumbled upon Randy and Monica’s grift and is demanding a piece of the action.

In this case, page 69 sets the reader in medias res and doesn’t connect directly with the book’s main plot, which finds freelance mailman Mercury Carter searching for a missing trafficked woman so he can return a ruby ring she lost in a previous misadventure. At this point in the book, Carter hasn’t met Randy and Monica yet, although their paths will soon cross in violent fashion.

Carter, a freelance mailman who has never missed a delivery, is bound by his personal code of honor to find the trafficked woman—Terri Watkins—and return her ring, regardless of who gets in his way. As often happens with Carter’s deliveries, an unexpected obstacle launches the action. In the case of The Delivery, Carter is in town to drop off a valuable item of baseball memorabilia to an ardent fan when Carter stops to rescue a woman injured in a car crash. As a result of the rescue, he finds himself sidetracked by the new assignment delivering the ring, a job that comes with deadly consequences.

Visit Andrew Welsh-Huggins's website.

My Book, The Movie: An Empty Grave.

Q&A with Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

The Page 69 Test: An Empty Grave.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (April 2023).

My Book, The Movie: The End of the Road.

The Page 69 Test: The End of the Road.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (November 2024).

My Book, The Movie: Sick to Death.

The Page 69 Test: Sick to Death.

The Page 69 Test: The Mailman.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (March 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue