"Top Producer"

Norb Vonnegut is a professional wealth adviser turned novelist.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Top Producer, his debut novel, and reported the following:

"Wall Street generally yawns on Fridays during the summer. Clients disappear. The most powerful money managers board helicopters in the morning and retreat to the Hamptons, where the square footage of their palatial estates grows faster than the portfolios they manage."
--from page 69 of Top Producer.

Is page 69 indicative? I think so, especially in the tone of my narrator, Grove O’Rourke. These days it’s difficult to identify with anyone from Wall Street, especially a top-producing stockbroker. But I hope you’ll care about Grove, a decent if somewhat irreverent guy who could be any one of us. He works hard and keeps his head down. He’s trying to hold it together as he chases the dream. Only Grove has no clue, he has no idea what’s lurking round the bend.

Top Producer begins inside a raucous party of 500 people, where Grove watches the spectacular death of Charlie Kelemen—best friend and money manager with a Midas touch and the spending habits to match. After the funeral, Charlie’s widow confides to Grove she can’t find her husband’s money and has only $600 left in a checking account. Grove offers to help, but the more he looks for her fortune the more trouble he finds. With the police. With his colleagues. With some really bad guys.

Read an excerpt from Top Producer, and learn more about the book and author at Norb Vonnegut's website and blog.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Art of Disappearing"

Ivy Pochoda graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Classical Greek and English. She was a champion squash player and a six-time member of the United States Women's National Squash Team. She was the writer in residence at the James Merrill House in Stonington, Connecticut from February to August 2009.

Pochoda applied the Page 69 Test to The Art of Disappearing, her debut novel, and reported the following:

Page 69 happens to be one of my favorite parts of The Art of Disappearing. On this page, Mel Snow, the novel’s protagonist, runs into Greta, a teenager who is obsessed with Mel’s husband, Toby, in a diner in Las Vegas. Toby is a traveling magician with powers far beyond those of his peers. He and Mel marry the day they meet and move to Las Vegas.

The strange thing about this page is that it contains none of the primary themes of The Art of Disappearing—magic, love, or loneliness. Instead it is a humorous look at Las Vegas’ buffets and an all night diner that offers a “steak dinner that got cheaper as the hours got later.” I love this page because it lifts the reader out of the world of magic and the strange relationship between Mel and Toby. While events on this page set in motion a disastrous moment in the life of the magician, the moment captured here is meant solely to convey both the gaudiness and the grit of Las Vegas.

It also has one of my favorite lines of dialogue in the whole book. When Mel orders a steak from Greta, Greta replies, “So you know, we don’t do rare, medium rare, anything like that…. We just do steak.”

Here is Page 69 in its entirety.

Despite the temperature, I was hungry. In fact, I was craving a steak—a flat, greasy diner steak. There was a joint just off the Strip I hoped would offer low-key relief from the elaborate Vegas buffets. I was tired of big spreads where cold cuts cuddled up to sashimi, dim sum next to seared quail. But worst of all, buffets sapped my hunger before I even sat down. Overwhelmed by choice and fearful of making a poor selection, I became a grazer, sampling drumsticks and spring rolls to see whether either was worth adding to my tray. By the time I reached my seat with a plate of food, I was unpleasantly full.

The Red Rock diner offered a steak dinner that got cheaper as the hours got later. At 11 a.m. the price of a well-flattened 16-oz sirloin with “any sort potato” had risen to four dollars from its low of three dollars, 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. At noon the trampled steak had hit $5.50. During the dinner rush, it would peak at $6.75, before plummeting at ten p.m. to $4.50, and then back to its two a.m. low. Before I sat down, I spun one of the vinyl-covered stools at the lunch counter. It creaked and wobbled until I stopped it with the weight of my body. The Red Rock’s chrome décor was tarnished by a layer of grease from the grill. Years of fry fat, cheese oil, and burger juices settled over the counter, napkin holders, seats, and silverware, giving the restaurant a speckled sheen.

“Steak dinner,” I said to the waitress when she appeared in front of my stool. I was busy finding hidden patterns in the Formica counter and didn’t look up.

“So you know, we don’t do rare, medium rare, anything like that,” the waitress said to my bowed head. “We just do steak.”

“That’s fine.”

“And the potato? You want fries?”

“Anything else? Can I have baked?”

Read excerpts from The Art of Disappearing, and learn more about the book and author at Ivy Pochoda's website.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Evil for Evil"

James R. Benn is the author of the Billy Boyle World War II series, historical mysteries set within the Allied High Command during the Second World War. The series began with Billy Boyle, which takes place in England and Norway in 1942. The second, The First Wave, carries on a few months later during the Allied invasion of French Northwest Africa. The third, Blood Alone, continues the story through the Allied invasion of Sicily.

Benn applied the Page 69 Test to Evil for Evil, the latest novel in the series, and reported the following:

Page 69 finds Billy Boyle meeting District Inspector Hugh Carrick for the first time, and sparks fly in their exchange, which encapsulates the chasm which separates Protestant and Catholic in Northern Ireland.

It’s November 1943, and Billy has been sent to Ulster to investigate the theft of fifty automatic weapons from a US Army depot. Suspicion falls on the Irish Republican Army, possibly in league with German agents, with the aim of disrupting the buildup of American troops training in Northern Ireland for the invasion of Europe. But Billy’s family has a history of supporting the IRA, and the family history handed down from his grandfather—who left Ireland as a child during the Famine years—causes Billy to have little sympathy for British rule in the North.

He and Inspector Carrick, an Irish Protestant, are ordered to cooperate in the investigation. Their first encounter does not go well, as Carrick has just returned from the funeral of a constable shot from ambush by the IRA. Billy tries to give his condolences, which are not appreciated.

“I am sorry, District Inspector. I’m a policeman myself, or was. In Boston, before the war. The death of a brother officer is a serious matter.”

“Serious? To a Catholic from Boston? I understand the IRA murder squads enjoy a great deal of support from the Irish settled in Boston.”

“How do you know I’m Catholic? Maybe I’m an atheist.”

“Do not joke with me, Lieutenant Boyle. Your name tells me what I need to know, and your city tells me the rest. It’s in the blood with you from across the border, whether you’ve gone to America or come north with a pistol to shoot a good man in the back.” His words spilled out with the Irish accent I was used to, but with a harder, clipped edge. The only part of him that moved was his lips.

“Perhaps we should talk another time, District Inspector. I’m sure passions are running high after the funeral.”

“Passions, Lieutenant Boyle? We have no time for passions. We have murderers to apprehend. We have a war to fight. Perhaps you allow yourself to wallow in passions, but personally I find them distracting.”

“Passion is what usually leads to murder, DI Carrick.”

Billy finds that for many, including himself, much is “in the blood.” Page 69 is instructive in that it sets the stage for everything Billy has to overcome, in his own heart and mind as much as in others, to solve a murder that threatens his own loyalties and beliefs.

Learn more about the book and author at James R. Benn's website.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Brutal Telling"

Louise Penny is an award-winning journalist who worked for many years for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Her bestselling first mystery, Still Life, was the winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards; her second, A Fatal Grace, won the 2007 Agatha Award for Best Novel; her fourth, A Rule Against Murder, was a New York Times bestseller.

Penny applied the Page 69 Test to The Brutal Telling, the fifth novel in the Three Pines mystery series, and reported the following:

Amazingly enough, page 69 is quite a bit like the rest of The Brutal Telling. Indeed, I’d suggest, for the time challenged, you simply read it. Forget the rest. Just filler, really.

On page 69 you get the cops discussing one of the mysteries of the murder, how come no one saw a light on at the bistro? Next morning we see Chief Inspector Gamache walking quietly around the village green, and we get some of the atmosphere of the tiny Quebec village of Three Pines. It’s Labour Day weekend and kids and families are preparing to return to the city. Gamache muses on the first day of school. On the pristine work books and sharpened pencils, when anything is possible and no mistakes had yet been made.

And he wonders about their young investigation. Had they marred their books yet? Made any mistakes?

Finally, at the bottom of page 69 – and as you know the bottom is always the best part of 69 - you get one of Gabri’s famous breakfasts at the B&B. Maple-cured back bacon, eggs, frothy café au lait and croissants.

Honestly, what more could you want in a page?

Read an excerpt of The Brutal Telling, and learn more about the book and author at Louise Penny's website and blog.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mathilda Savitch"

Victor Lodato is a playwright and poet. He is the recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, and has won numerous awards for his plays, including one from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Mathilda Savitch, his debut novel, and reported the following:

The novel is written in the voice of a fiercely precocious child, the thirteen-year-old Mathilda Savitch. A year before the book begins, Mathilda's beloved older sister, Helene, is killed--pushed in front of a train by a man still on the loose. Mathilda has been anticipating, with a kind of manic intensity, the one-year anniversary of her sister's death. And, on page 69, we find ourselves, precisely, on the night before the "big day," as Mathilda calls it. Up until this point, Mathilda has been hell on wheels: breaking dishes, lying, smoking, getting into fights at school--doing everything in her power to wake up her parents, who, by her estimation, have turned into zombies. Mathilda's badness seems to have no bounds, but, on page 69, she's exhausted, and some vulnerability is beginning to seep through the tough exterior.

In the car with her parents, heading home after a night at the theater, she's not feeling well. Lying across the back seat, with her mother's sweater wrapped around her head, she tells us:

Ma's sweater had perfume on it, the kind I love that smells like powder, but tonight it just made me sicker. I thought I heard Ma and Da whispering at one point but when I poked my head out of the sweater I realized it was just the radio. Da had put it on real low. It was the voices of strangers.

I have to get out of here, I thought. I started crying but I swallowed it.

"What are you eating?" Ma said.

That's when I stopped breathing. I made myself into a dead person.

But then I had to breathe again, I couldn't help myself.

For most of the book, Mathilda is at odds with her mother, whom she loves desperately, but at whom she's furious for having abandoned her, physically and emotionally, after Helene's death. Mathilda's feelings of isolation, of being trapped on the "island of grief," to borrow the narrator's phrase, are clearly defined in this excerpt. But the tone of this page is a little more melancholy than usual. Mathilda is often involved in some prank or scheme that keeps her in a more lively, even comedic, mode. And, later in the book, she'll be back to her old tricks--especially after she breaks into Helene's still active e-mail account, and begins to uncover information about her sister's secret life. But here, on page 69, she's too weak to play games, and the undeniable gravity of her family's position overtakes her:

When we were pulling into the driveway I saw Da's eyes in the mirror. I guess he saw me as well. We looked at each other for a second, and with the mirror between us it was almost like the truth was coming out.

It was so big I bowed my head. I threw up in the car. Everything started to spin, and then time went funny again. A few years passed or maybe they went backwards because the next thing I knew, Da was carrying me into the house and putting me to bed. Which is something he used to do a million years ago when I was a baby. When I was the angel of the world. When we were the luckiest people ever to live on the face of the Earth.

Watch the video trailer for Mathilda Savitch and learn more about the book at the Farrar, Straus and Giroux website.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Blame"

Michelle Huneven is the author of the novels Round Rock and Jamesland. She has received a General Electric Foundation Award for Younger Writers and a Whiting Writers’ Award for fiction.

She applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel Blame, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Blame, finds the novel’s protagonist, Patsy MacLemoore, adjusting to life at a prison fire camp in the hills of Malibu.

A year before, the 29-year-old hard-drinking college history professor had woken up from a blackout in jail to discover that, while she had been driving on a suspended license (again), she had hit and killed two people in her driveway. Thanks to a plea bargain, she was sentenced to four years in state prison. By page 69, she has already endured stints in jail and “receiving” (a 60 day period in which she was evaluated for assignment to the appropriate state prison), and has spent most of a year in Bertrin, a women’s minimum-to-medium security unit in the San Joaquin Valley.

Now she’s at fire camp, an honor of sorts, and certainly better than prison—you can be outside, there are doors on the toilet stalls and fewer restrictions in general. But it’s still not for the timid or the physically unfit: After her first day’s physical training, which consisted of a six-mile hike, Patsy thighs are sore to the touch, her face “tight and pink, as if scalded.” But she’s in luck because it’s Sunday, visiting day, and she can sleep till dinner.

The second day’s hike is nine miles, which is then followed by a full workday of clearing brush at a public campground using the versatile Pulaski, “a heavy hybrid ax, maul, and hoe.”

“They don’t call it work camp for nothin’,” quips Patsy’s roommate, Antonia.

By this time in her sentence (about a year in and, it turns out, halfway through), Patsy has started attending AA and accepting responsibility for her previous heedless and careening life. But here, at fire camp, she also has come as far as possible from her former life of middleclass privilege and intellectual pursuits:

“At Bertrin, Patsy had been in with petty, unmalicious felons—drug users, prostitutes, check kiters—but in Malibu she lived with killers, assaulters, armed robbers, anyone who’d done good time and had fewer than two years to go…”

Antonia, for example, has come over from the California Youth Authority, where she’d been incarcerated since age thirteen for killing her mother, a crime Antonia freely admits is “a doozy.”

Page 69 is fairly representative in that it finds Patsy adjusting to life in sobriety, working hard, finding sustenance in the natural world, and making lifelong connections. (A dozen years down the line, Antonia will landscape Patsy’s new home.) At the same time, the humiliations of prison and fire camp go deep and mark her for life.

In Blame, I wanted to write about someone who always had an uneasy sense of her own goodness. Most people are fairly sure that, at heart, they’re morally sound; Patsy, never. The drunken accident dovetails into this uneasiness and she will spend much of her life atoning, making amends, and trying to be good. Decades later, she will face certain questions: Does living a life intent on goodness make for a good life?

And, What if you’ve spent much of your life making amends that were, perhaps, not altogether necessary?

Read an excerpt from Blame, and learn more about the author and her work at Michelle Huneven's website.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Seven Days of Rage"

Paul LaRosa is an Emmy Award-winning producer for the CBS newsmagazine 48 Hours. He won a Primetime Emmy for the acclaimed CBS documentary 9/11, and has also won a Peabody Award, a Christopher Award, and an Edward R. Murrow Award. For sixteen years he was reporter for the New York Daily News, where he was the co-winner with Anna Quindlen of the Meyer Berger Award given by Columbia University's School of Journalism. Maria Cramer is a reporter for the Boston Globe where she covers the Boston police. She has been the lead reporter on numerous crime stories, including the case of Clark Rockefeller, who gained international attention in 2008 when he kidnapped his daughter from a Boston Park and was later connected to the 1984 disappearance of a California couple. She began covering the Craigslist Killer story since the April 14th killing of Julissa Brisman.

LaRosa applied the Page 69 Test to their new book, Seven Days of Rage: The Deadly Crime Spree of the Craigslist Killer, and reported the following:

It's always fascinating to me to turn to any page of a book I've written to see how it reads, if it will hold up, and, now that I've turned to Page 69 of Seven Days of Rage, I'm happy to see that I do believe a reader skimming this page would be inclined to read on or, hopefully, buy the book.

On Page 69, I'm describing the third attack of the Craigslist Killer and, as far as I know, I am the only journalist to have interviewed this victim whom I call Amber in the book. Even if you've read everything there is to read on the case, you have not read this, simply because it has not appeared anywhere else.

The third victim of the Craigslist Killer is a stripper from Las Vegas who was in Rhode Island working the strip club circuit and, in her spare time, making some money in her room giving private lap dancers that she advertised on Craigslist. This was her unlucky night because the Craigslist Killer decided to answer her ad and, within moments of entering her room, he had pulled a gun on her.

Here is her quote from Page 69: "I turned around and he pulled out a gun. His hand was shaking pretty bad. I was scared but I listened to what he said to do."

I think that should get any readers blood boiling for more. A stripper, a killer, a gun. What happens next? Read on, my friends.

Read an excerpt from Seven Days of Rage, and learn more about the book at Paul LaRosa's website and blog.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Boulevard"

Stephen Jay Schwartz grew up in New Mexico and traveled the United States extensively before settling down in Los Angeles. There he became the Director of Development for Wolfgang Petersen, helping develop films such as Outbreak and Air Force One.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Boulevard, his first novel, and reported the following:

Ah, if only it were all about page 68, which is rich with a symbolism that carries through to the end of the novel. Page 69 of Boulevard comprises only a paragraph or so, the end of a chapter. Still, it does capture a few of the main themes:

His desperate protestations sounded like admissions of guilt to her ears until he finally called out, “What do I need to do to prove I’m not lying?” and she responded with what she had wanted all along: “A lie-detector test.”

At the time it seemed like a good idea. Hayden was willing to do almost anything to keep his marriage intact. He had been honest with her and he was sure the test would prove him right. In fact, however, it proved to be the beginning of the end.

The chapter is about Hayden’s disclosure to his wife about his sexual addiction, about the years of picking prostitutes off the street, going to strip clubs, visiting brothels. It’s about trust, love, break-up, fear, addiction.

Odd topics to be floating around in a hard-boiled crime-thriller, no?

Robbery-Homicide Detective Hayden Glass is a flawed human being. As the review in Booklist says, Hayden is “decent, haunted, and sometimes loathsome.” This is a true depiction of his character. He’s human.

But it’s also this addiction, this darkness which he understands, that helps him catch one of the cruelest serial killers Los Angeles has ever known. Had he not been a sex addict, he might not have known where to look.

However, had Hayden Glass not been a sex addict, the killer might never have arrived in the first place…

Read an excerpt from Boulevard, and learn more about the author and his work at Stephen Jay Schwartz's website.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bird in Hand"

Christina Baker Kline is the author of four novels: Bird in Hand (just published by William Morrow), The Way Life Should Be, Desire Lines, and Sweet Water. She is Writer-in-Residence at Fordham University, and lives outside of New York City.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Bird in Hand and reported the following:

Page 69 of my new novel, Bird in Hand, is a turning point in the story.

The novel opens with a car crash: Alison, driving back to her home in the suburbs from New York City after a party, gets into an accident, and a child dies. Her husband’s first reaction, when she calls him, is accusatory: “What did you do?” And Alison suddenly realizes that something is deeply wrong in her marriage.

On p. 69, it’s the morning after the accident. Alison, dazed, is standing in her kitchen when she hears a knock at the back door. Her resolutely chipper next-door neighbor, Robin, is “tentatively waving the fingers of one hand, anemone-like, through the glass.” Alison winces; the last thing she wants to do is talk to Robin, who knows about the accident but not about the child’s death. But when Robin hands her a foil-wrapped loaf of banana bread, Alison is surprised at her reaction:

The loaf was still warm, and somehow comforting in Alison’s hands: the solid heft of it, its mammal warmth. “Robin – thank you.” How kind. Alison felt a tickle in the bridge of her nose.

Oh no; she was going to cry.
…

Robin took the loaf from Alison and placed it on the counter. Then she clasped her hand and led her to the table. “How about some coffee?” she said gently.

What Alison discovers over the next few weeks is that some of the people she loved and trusted most in her life will let her down, and people she barely knows will come through for her in unexpected ways. Robin’s simple gesture in this scene, her instinctive kindness, is exactly what Alison needs. As the story unfolds, the reader learns that the accident has set in motion a series of events that changes the lives of all of the central characters. This moment, on page 69, marks Alison’s dawning realization of this change.

Browse inside Bird in Hand, and learn more about the author and her work at Christina Baker Kline's website and her blog on writing and the creative process.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Tower"

Ken Bruen's many novels include The Guards, the book that introduced Jack Taylor, which was a finalist for the Edgar, Barry, and Macavity Awards, and winner of the Shamus Award for the Best Novel of 2003. Reed Farrel Coleman's sixth novel, The James Deans, won the Shamus, Barry and Anthony Awards for Best Paperback Original, and was further nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, and Gumshoe Awards.

Coleman applied the Page 69 Test to Tower, their highly acclaimed new novel, and reported the following:

Tower is a collaboration that Ken and I discussed many years ago at Bouchercon. It was to be a story of two tough guys from Brooklyn who grew up and apart together and whose fates were tied together by their long painful history. But after a few months and no further discussion of it, Ken sent me about 85 pages of the book and said, “Here’s my part of the book. Have at it, brother.” The rest, as they say, is history. The book is unique as it is told in parallel narratives and P69 features a crucial section of “Nick’s” narrative.

Boyle was nose deep in the good book, Griffin reading the Daily News. They surveyed me,
hard to read their expressions, but if I had to, I’d say Griffin, as ever, was amused. Boyle, he was just unpredictable. He closed the Bible a with slow grace, gave it a touch and then blessed himself, said

“So they shot yah?”

Biblical Boyle is the head of a Westies-like crime gang in Manhattan and Griffin is his ex-IRA enforcer. Nick’s been shot outside a Brooklyn bar after meeting with his friend Todd, but it’s unclear who did the deed. Was it the cops? A jealous rival for his girlfriend Shannon? A rival gang? Boyle wants to know if the cops have questioned his “wild colonial boy.”

“The cops been to see you?”

“Yes, sir.”

The sir definitely helped. He seemed to uncoil and with his cigar, signalled for me to continue and I did.

“They asked me if I knew who did it, why anyone would want to shoot me and I gave them nothing.”

Boyle smiled, said

“That’s me boyo.”

Well, as Boyle finds out later, that’s a questionable assessment.

Learn more about Tower.

Visit Ken Bruen's website and Reed Farrel Coleman's website.

The Page 99 Test: Tower.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Never Slow Dance With A Zombie"

E. Van Lowe was born in New York City and moved to Los Angeles to attend graduate school. He cowrote the Academy Award-nominated short film Cadillac Dreams, and was a writer for many TV shows, including The Cosby Show, Knight Rider, and Even Stevens. He was nominated for an Emmy for his work on Even Stevens.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Never Slow Dance with a Zombie, his first novel for young adults, and reported the following:

Page 69 is not representative of what happens in Never Slow Dance With A Zombie, however it is a pivotal moment in the story. In the book, Margot Jean Johnson (as self centered a protagonist as you will find in YA lit) comes to the realization that she has achieved none of the goals she has set for herself in high school. One of her goals is to have a boyfriend. Sybil convinces Margot to allow her (Sybil) to ask school hottie, Dirk Conrad, to go to the carnival with Margot. Why would Sybil do this? Because she’s Margot’s best friend. But the asking leads to an argument, and when Margot and Sybil show up at school the morning after the argument and the carnival everyone at school has become zombies. Well, almost everyone. It seems Principal Taft isn’t a zombie either. P. 68 is where the girls go to Taft to tell him that their classmates are all zombies. On P 69 we get his outrageous response.

When Margot says “So we should just pretend this hasn’t happened?” Taft’s response is: “No, I’m not saying that at all.” He lifted his head. “But would it be so bad if we did? Just until the end of the semester. There’s only seven weeks left…” I’m sure the reader will be compelled to go on because how many high school principals would ask the remaining living students to ignore that they are in the midst of a zombie uprising?

Never Slow Dance With A Zombie is an absurd look at high school life. Along with all the usual high school issues one might have, Margot and Sybil must navigate life among the zombies. They realize they can have the best semester of their high school careers. All they have to do to achieve it is stay alive.

The book has been described as Mean Girls meets Night of The Living Dead. I had a blast writing it. I hope people enjoy reading it.

Read an excerpt from Never Slow Dance With A Zombie, and learn more about the book and author at E. Van Lowe's website, blog, and MySpace page.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Vampire a Go-Go"

Victor Gischler's novels include Gun Monkeys, which was nominated for the Edgar Award, and Shotgun Opera, an Anthony Award finalist. His work has been translated into Italian, French, Spanish and Japanese. Bestselling author James Rollins has called him "Part Christopher Moore, part Quentin Tarantino, ... a raving, badass genius."

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Vampire a Go-Go, and reported the following:

"Not for the first time or the last, Kelley wondered if his work here at Rudolph's court wasn't in fact a terrible, terrible idea."

That is the first sentence of page 69 in Vampire A G-Go, and I think it pretty much hits the nail on the head. The characters in Vampire A Go-Go are constantly suffering the results of terrible ideas, all stemming back to the original terrible idea of the Alchemists who worked in the court of mad Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II. The novel is really two stories woven together; the first story is about young Allen Cabbot, well-meaning but semi-bumbling grad student. But the terrible ideas began with John Dee and Edward Kelley so long ago. Kelley's story takes place centuries before Allen's, yet both are connected. What is the secret of the Philosopher's stone? What was Kelley part of all those years ago that has come back to haunt Allen in the present day.

Answer: A Terrible, Terrible idea.

Browse inside Vampire a Go-Go, and learn more about the author and his work at Victor Gischler's Blogpocalypse.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue