"A Map of Tulsa"

Benjamin Lytal has written for The Wall Street Journal, The London Review of Books, The Los Angeles Times, Bookforum, The Believer, McSweeney’s, Fence, The Daily Beast, and The Nation.  For four years he wrote The New York Sun’s “Recent Fiction” column.  Originally from Tulsa, Lytal currently lives in Chicago.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, A Map of Tulsa, and reported the following:

From Page 69:

background, having drunk all afternoon; I found myself heading upstairs again, taking the stairs in giant steps, slowly, wobbling, turning into the same storage room, and curling up for a nap just the same, shortly after dark. I slept for a long time. And when I woke up, deep in the night, with the carpet imprinted on the side of my face, it felt like time had looped, and I resolved to myself to do something good with my life, to break the loop.

I didn't go down the stairs this time but continued around the landing, and careened truly innocently into a bedroom where the light was on. Beneath the light, Adrienne and Chase lay there sleeping. They were strewn on the bed below me, covered with blankets. I was riveted. I stood there with a rocky feeling on my face. I stood and studied Adrienne's nose, pressed flat on its side, an intense rose color smushed on the white pillowcase. Adrienne cracked an eye.

But it was Chase who got it together and unfurled an arm to greet me. "Join us," he said, his voice hoarse.

I didn't believe it.

"Come on," said Chase. "Let's get some sleep."

They weren't touching; they were sleeping in different halves of the bed. I stepped out of my shoes.

To climb in, I had to plant my knee and hand beside Chase. Then I hesitated. "Should I turn out the light?"

Chase smiled, amused. "Why sure."

Then I made my way back to the bed and, planting a knee without touching Chase, I tried to bridge across them to get down on the far side of Adrienne. She rolled away, however. And then Chase just pulled me down like a dog. He laid his arm across me. "It's cool," he said.

This is the whole of A Map of Tulsa page 69. I'm very happy that we landed here. The narrator, a boy named Jim, is in an exploratory mood ... he's beginning to wonder if bold initiative and passive luxuriance aren't, late at night, one and the same thing.

I'll end by quoting a review that sheds further light on page 69:

“Jim and Adrienne’s relationship begins with some mild drug use and frottage before lurching into a creepily detailed ménage a trois, at which point the novel begins to shake and rumble like a small, unexpectedly powerful volcano....”
—Tom Bissell, Harper’s

Learn more about A Map of Tulsa and Benjamin Lytal on tumblr and Twitter.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Peculiar"

Stefan Bachmann is a writer and musician. He was born in Colorado and now lives with his family in Zurich, Switzerland, where he attends the Zurich Conservatory. He began writing his acclaimed novel The Peculiar in 2010, when he was sixteen years old.

Bachmann applied the Page 69 Test to The Peculiar and reported the following:

Page 69 of The Peculiar takes place in Nonsuch House, a huge, strange old place in the middle of 19th century London, hanging partway over the river, and home to the sinister faery politician, Mr. Lickerish. Mr Jelliby, the second main character, has been invited to tea together with two not-very-nice rival politicians, and something is definitely wrong.

"It must be shot with a special sort of gun," Mr Lumbidule was saying. "...has real blood inside, real meat, and if you are tired of hunting it, it will lie down on its iron back and..."

Mr. Jelliby couldn't take it any longer. Wiping his brow he said, "Forgive me, Mr. Lickerish, but is there a water closet nearby?"

The two men stopped long enough to smirk at him. Mr. Jelliby barely noticed. He was too busy trying not to vomit.

The faery's mouth twitched. He regarded Mr. Jelliby sharply for a moment. Then he said, "Of course there is a water closet. Left of the door you'll find a bellpull. Someone will come to escort you."

"Oh..." Mr. Jelliby lurched out of his seat and stumbled away from the chairs. His head was spinning. On his way across the room he thought he might have knocked something over - he heard a clatter and felt something delicate grind to glassy shards beneath his feet - but he was too dizzy to stop.

He staggered out of the library, fumbling along the wall for the bellpull. His fingers brushed a tassel. His hand closed around a thick velvet cord and he tugged it with all his might. Somewhere deep in the house a bell tolled, long and sorrowful, like a funeral bell.

Learn more about the book and author at Stefan Bachmann's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: The Peculiar.

Writers Read: Stefan Bachmann.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Shelter Cycle"

Peter Rock was born and raised in Salt Lake City. His most recent book is The Shelter Cycle, which concerns the end of the world in Montana in 1990, among other things.  His previous novel, My Abandonment, has won an Alex Award, the Utah Book Award, and been published in Germany, Turkey and France. He is also the author of the novels The Bewildered, The Ambidextrist, This Is the Place, and Carnival Wolves, and a story collection, The Unsettling.

Rock applied the Page 69 Test to The Shelter Cycle and reported the following:

I actually like this page; it gives a person a decent sense of what is afoot. It’s a piece of a document written by one of the characters, Francine, recounting her childhood in the Church Universal and Triumphant, an (actual and historical) extreme church in Montana that believed the world might end in 1990. In this page, the Messenger, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, makes a sudden appearance in the children’s classroom. The Messenger was the one person alive who could communicate with the Ascended Masters; she “dictated” their wisdom that came to her at a frequency so powerful that it would blow a regular person’s body apart.

From page 69:

[The Messenger] traveled in the higher planes…energy radiated from her, a vibration that wasn’t hot or cold, just a shiver in your blood circling in you with more electricity, the power growing…. The Messenger told us that her heart was great enough to burn up all the darknesses in our hearts.

This page ends with the Messenger’s assertion about two of the children, my book’s protagonists: “She told us that our paths were all intertwined. The two of you, she said. All intertwined. You must help each other in every way you can.”

Learn more about the book and author at Peter Rock's website.

The Page 69 Test: My Abandonment.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The House Girl"

Tara Conklin is a writer and lawyer currently living with her family in Seattle, WA. Most recently, she worked as a litigator in the New York and London offices of a corporate law firm but now devotes herself full-time to writing fiction.

She applied the Page 69 Test to The House Girl, her debut novel, and reported the following:

The House Girl tells the interlocked stories of Lina Sparrow, a 24-year old lawyer in a New York corporate law firm in 2004 and Josephine Bell, an 18-year old artist and house slave on a Virginia tobacco farm in 1852. In the opening pages of the novel, we learn that Josephine has decided to run away from her owners and that Lina has been assigned to work on a new lawsuit involving reparations for the descendants of American slaves. Page 69 of The House Girl finds Josephine talking to Dr. Vickers, an old family friend of Josephine’s mistress, a woman she calls Missus Lu. He has just examined Missus Lu, who has been suffering from seizures in recent months, and earlier that morning Josephine discovered a worrying lump on the back of Missus Lu’s neck. Page 69 begins with the doctor’s words:

“Your mistress, I believe she is dying. It seems there is a tumor; that is the source of the protrusion at the back of the neck. The question is really one of time. It is difficult to know how long it will be in these cases. The illness has persisted for so long already, and her mind is not strong. But she may very well surprise us all, find an inner reserve.” He lowered his chin.

“Tell Mr. Bell all that I have told you. I will call again in two days time. If anything should change in her behavior, Mr. Bell must send for me at once. Do you understand?”

“Of course, yes. I understand.”

Dr. Vickers’ eyes were heavy-lidded, unblinking. “I will see myself out. Stay with your Missus.” He turned to make his way down the creaking stairs, the tip of his cane held high, never once hitting a step.

Josephine remained in the hall long after Dr. Vickers had gone, waiting for Missus Lu to summon her. Missus Lu, dying. The doctor’s words settled into Josephine, taking possession of her heart, and she felt her resolve falter. After she was gone, who would care for Missus Lu? Who would hold her down when she shook, comb her hair, fetch what she needed, see that she ate? Mister would never do such things. He had no money for another house girl. Lottie, Therese, Calla, none of them knew all that Josephine knew of the house, of Missus and her ways.

Josephine watched the sun on the floorboards, the shadows cast by the clouds moving like water across the wood, and she thought of an earlier time when she was a girl but not a child. Her bare feet slapping on the stones of the kitchen floor as Missus sang a tune in th parlor. Books taken from the library and ferretted up to her room, and the night hours full of the marvels they contained. There had been a lightness then.... 

This scene is pivotal for Josephine. Although she is fiercely determined to run, fear has started to work its way into her thoughts. Now, with the doctor’s pronouncement that Missus Lu is dying, Josephine’s mixed feelings about her mistress rise up. Can she leave this woman, who has been almost a mother to her, at such a time? As Josephine’s day progresses, she encounters many moments like this – times when she questions her decision to run – but she overcomes them and becomes increasingly committed to escape. I think this scene captures the overall flavor of Josephine Bell’s narrative – the obstacles she faces, the complex emotions she feels for Missus Lu, the sense of foreboding and decay of the world around her. Of course, the contemporary half of the book deals with different characters and has a very different flavor, but we’d have to jump ahead to page 72 for that…

Learn more about the book and author at Tara Conklin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Frozen Shroud"

Martin Edwards's many novels include The Frozen Shroud and five previous Lake District mysteries.

He applied the Page 69 Test to The Frozen Shroud and reported the following:

On page 69 of The Frozen Shroud, DCI Hannah Scarlett, head of Cumbria’s Cold Case Squad, is out for the night with her oldest friend, Terri. When they meet for a drink in a bar called Balotelli’s, Hannah finds herself troubled by conflicting emotions – and not just because Balotelli’s is hosting a Neil Diamond tribute act. She wants to look after Terri, who is being stalked by her former lover, Stefan. His behavior has become increasingly menacing, but Hannah is frustrated because she senses that Terri is hiding something from her. At the same time, she is facing strife at work, as austerity measures mean her team and its resources are being slashed to the bone, while her private life has gone from bad to worse. Her split from second hand bookseller Marc Amos is final in her mind, but not his, and a colleague’s interest in her is causing tongues to wag. But Daniel Kind is still there in the background. And although Hannah doesn’t know it yet, Daniel’s world and hers are about to collide in the most dramatic way possible, as an old Ullswater story about a headless woman threatens to tear apart lives in the here and now.

Learn more about the book and author at Martin Edwards’s website and blog.

Writers Read: Martin Edwards.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Follow Her Home"

Steph Cha is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School. She lives in her native city of Los Angeles, California.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Follow Her Home, her first novel, and reported the following:

On Friday night, after agreeing to conduct an amateur adultery investigation on her friend Luke’s behalf, Juniper Song is knocked unconscious. When she wakes up on Saturday morning, she finds a corpse in the trunk of her car and confides in her ex-boyfriend Diego Diaz. Diego and Song broke up eight years ago, but he remains, along with Luke, one of her best friends. She tells him she’s become involved in an investigation that now includes at least one murder, and on page 68, she and Diego argue about her continued involvement in the case. He has just asked her how she could possibly know what she is doing, when at the top of page 69:

The door opened like magic as I struggled for a plausible answer. Jackie
Blumenthal Diaz walked in shoulder first in a plain white tank and gym shorts. Her forehead and bare arms glistened with the sweat of good health.

“I’m home.” Her eyes took a second to find mine and she looked at me with surprise approaching panic. “Juniper, I didn’t know you were coming.”

Jackie was Diego’s classmate in law school, a Columbia graduate who had taken a few years off after college to work in D.C. She was a few years older than Diego, having just turned thirty-one in February. They started dating toward the end of their second year of law school. It was Diego’s first relationship after our breakup, but he and Jackie got hitched the week after their graduation last June. Luke and I used to tease Diego about their hasty marriage, attributing it to her insistent biological clock. We stopped once we noticed the shivering timbre of his laughter as he bore our immaturities.

Not that she looked old enough to worry. Five foot five, 110 pounds of lean muscle, she went to the gym as often as most people brushed their teeth. Short, dark hair fell jaunty and jagged about her ears, framing a milk-white, unmade face that didn’t tan, didn’t wrinkle. Her quiet eyes stayed squinted most of the time, but when they didn’t, their cool auburn agate was captivating.

“Hey, Jackie.” I tried to dissipate the solemn, intimate air that hung over the sofa. “I was in the area and thought I’d drop by.”

“You’re always in the area.”

Jackie pretended to like me with the thespian flair of a roasted peanut. I didn’t blame her for being wary of me, but I always thought it was silly. Diego and I hadn’t shared so much as one strand of saliva since before we could drink legally. I suspected that the fact of my perpetual singledom since our breakup let her imagine I still carried a torch for him.

Hey, I lucked out here – my page 69 doesn’t need too much explanation. Here, you meet Diego’s wife Jackie for the first time, and it’s a sort of tense, important scene that has the faint outlines of a love triangle. Song is a very guarded, solitary character with few deep attachments, and you can see why she might make Jackie uneasy. As for the writing – well, since you don’t meet a new character on every page, I’d say there’s more exposition here than on average. The prose and tone are representative of the rest of the book, fairly descriptive with a wry, observant voice and a sprinkle of pointed conversation. I would hope that someone skimming would be tempted to check out the rest of the book. There is no special defect in page 69.

Learn more about Follow Her Home, and visit Steph Cha's website and Twitter perch.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Steph Cha and Duke.

My Book, The Movie: Follow Her Home.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Dying Fall"

Elly Griffiths’s Ruth Galloway novels have been praised as “highly atmospheric” (New York Times Book Review), “remarkable” (Richmond Times-Dispatch), and “gripping” (Louise Penny).

Griffiths applied the Page 69 Test to her latest novel, A Dying Fall, and reported the following:

‘As they turn off the A59 the world changes.’ This sentence, halfway down p69 of A Dying Fall, pretty much sums up how I feel about the book. After four books set in Norfolk, in this one I take my heroine, Dr Ruth Galloway, on holiday. Well, not exactly a holiday. In the first chapter Ruth is shocked to discover that her old friend Dan Golding, who is teaching at a university in the north of England, has died in a fire. Then she receives a letter from Dan, sent just before he died. Dan tells Ruth that he has a made an archaeological discovery which will ‘change everything.’ But Dan also says that he is scared. Is someone prepared to kill to keep Dan’s discovery a secret? Ruth travels to Lancashire to investigate.

It’s a risk to take your characters away from their familiar location. I love Norfolk – so does Ruth – and I know readers have enjoyed the descriptions of the bleak and beautiful landscape. Yet it just felt like time for a change. On page 69, as Ruth follows the road that ‘snakes slowly upwards’ I felt that I was reaching new, more invigorating, ground. In the distance Ruth sees a vast hill, wreathed in clouds. This is Pendle Hill, the scene of many strange events, including a seventeenth century witch trial and a vision of God’s love. In this book Ruth encounters the Pendle witches, modern-day Neo-Nazis and - scariest of all – Nelson’s mother. I hope that readers will enjoy the journey.

Learn more about the book and author at Elly Griffiths's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Crossing Places.

My Book, The Movie: The House at Sea’s End.

The Page 69 Test: A Room Full of Bones.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Braking Points"

Tammy Kaehler’s career in marketing and technical writing landed her in the world of automobile racing, which inspired her with its blend of drama, competition, and welcoming people. Her debut, Dead Man’s Switch, was praised by mystery fans as well as racing insiders, and she takes readers back behind the wheel in Braking Points, the second Kate Reilly Racing Mystery.

Kaehler applied the Page 69 Test to Braking Points and reported the following:

At the start of Chapter 13 (page 69) of Braking Points, racecar driver (and sometime amateur sleuth) Kate Reilly goes through a typical cycle: a bright spot or bit of relief quickly counteracted by bad news.

I finally thought to check voicemail on my new smartphone after thirty minutes of sitting on the edge of the bathtub watching Holly play with the products I’d been given. My new outgoing greeting referred all media inquiries to Matt and Lily Diaz, so I had only five messages to listen to.

The first one nearly made me drop the phone: Miles Hanson, telling me he was fine, agreeing about shared blame, and hoping we’d meet again in better circumstances. “You stay out of the walls, now, hear?” was how he signed off. I felt giddy.

I returned Stuart’s call first, only to be shocked by the news he had for me: he hadn’t left Elkhart Lake on Tuesday because he’d returned to the police station to answer more questions, including some about his prior relationship with Ellie.

“Your what?”

“We were engaged a number of years ago.”

Kate has finally given in and joined the world of smartphones and social media (follow her on Twitter! @katereilly28). She’s also hired a pair of crisis public relations experts to help her cope with bad press and negative fan sentiment after a wreck that sent NASCAR’s most popular driver to the hospital—a wreck most people think she caused.

But she finds out here that the driver in question, Miles Hanson, doesn't hold a grudge, which gives Kate a few moments of peace. Until her next phone call. Her boyfriend Stuart, who found Kate’s friend Ellie Prescott dead four days earlier, reveals he not only knew Ellie, but was engaged to her … which is news to Kate. It’s not the first or last time in Braking Points that Kate wonders exactly who she can trust….

Learn more about the book and author at Tammy Kaehler's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Dead Man’s Switch.

My Book, The Movie: Dead Man's Switch.

Writers Read: Tammy Kaehler (August 2011).

--Marshal Zeringue

"OCD, the Dude, and Me"

Lauren Roedy Vaughn is an award-winning educator who has spent twenty years teaching English to high school students with language-based learning disabilities. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles, where she is an avid yogini and Big Lebowski nut.

Vaughn applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, OCD, The Dude, and Me, and reported the following:

An excerpt from Danielle Levine’s English essay entitled “Something Beautiful”…which resides on page 69:

“My father told me about this news story that happened a while ago to the Amish people. He is very in to sharing poignant information with me. He said this deranged man wandered into a schoolhouse in the Amish community and killed all these young girls. (This is NOT the beautiful part.)

My father told me that in a follow-up story in the news, we all got to learn how this community publicly forgave the man who did this to all those girls, who took all those girls from their families, who cut their lives so short. At first, I was mad at my dad for telling me this story even though he told me ‘knowledge is power,’ and we must be open to hearing about difficult topics so we can grow. My point was: How could those people forgive that man? How could they forget about those girls like that? My father said forgiveness does not entail forgetting about the people who are lost, but at the moment I was in no condition to process his point.”

On page 69 of my novel, therein lies an important theme: forgiveness. However, before I get into that, I can’t help but reflect on the number 69. I’m a middle-aged woman, but I’m not entirely naïve. I know my former high school students will smile that this blog focuses on page 69 of novels. I hear their snickers. More significantly, if you merge the two numbers, the 6 and the 9, the yin-yang symbol appears. That’s what I really love about this blog. The yin-yang: the symbol of the joining of opposites, the acknowledgement that all in this world exists in paradox. This blog is one such example—attempting to find significant meaning about an entire novel from just one page. It is possible. (Read the rest of the posts.) More broadly, within the messy paradox of living in a mortal world, one of the greatest gifts we have to give one another (aside from our love) is our forgiveness. OCD, The Dude, and Me is told through Danielle Levine’s senior year essays, emails, journals etc. The essay on page 69, assigned by her English teacher, is entitled “Something Beautiful.” And, in case you haven’t had enough of paradox: Danielle writes about a horrific situation that gives rise to something beautiful: forgiveness.

Learn more about the book and author at Lauren Roedy Vaughn's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Gods of Heavenly Punishment"

Jennifer Cody Epstein is the author of international bestseller The Painter from Shanghai. She has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Asian Wall Street Journal, Self, Mademoiselle and NBC, and has worked in Hong Kong, Japan and Bangkok, Thailand. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and two daughters.

Epstein applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Apparently everyone else was thinking along the same lines, because the silence was followed by a deafening outcry. It seemed to Cam that every man on the vast ship roared his approval, though Midge was rendered uncharacteristically speechless. He stared down at the deck from his seat as though he’d been woken up from a nap there. Then he slapped his forehead with his flight cap.

“I’ll be damned,” he’d shouted down to Cam. “Tokyo. Well, we’re in for it now.”

His heavily stubbled face wore a grin, and Cam found his own (nearly hairless, as always) face doing the same. The plan’s audacity shocked him, but it also sparked a giddy exhalation of relief, because finally, they were doing something. The treachery of Oahu would have an answer. The wasteland to which they’d all tuned in that first bright Sunday of last December would be avenged. And that was something that made it all worth it, because the most frightening thing about the Jap attack had been how powerless it had made him feel. It was a little bit like the stutter he’d struggled with for the first eighteen years of his life. Or being forced to fight in the dark. Or like having a gunnysack yanked over your head, and your arms and legs tied down, and having to just sit there, waiting for the next blow.

But they weren’t sitting any longer. Tokyo, watch the hell out, Cam thought, on that sunny April 2nd. He’d tossed his pilot’s cap into the bolt-blue sky, and even clapped arms with a nearby bellbottom, something he hadn’t done since boarding since most of the Navy men seemed to see the AAFers as about as useful and appealing as drowned rats.

Is this page representative of the novel? From a literal standpoint it’s hard to say—the novel actually is told from the perspectives of six different characters (on either side of the Pacific conflict) and in settings that range from peacetime New York State to fire-bombarded Tokyo to a 1960’s art exhibit in L.A. So I’d say it’s representative of one aspect of the book—which is war-time exuberance and the need for vengeance and naïve heroism. On a more general level I’d say it is representative, in that—like the novel in general—it delves into the churning thoughts and emotions of a person placed in an extreme, dangerous and life-changing moment in their lives and—oftentimes—in world history. As such, I’d certainly hope it would be a motivating page to land on for a perspective reader—that they’d want to read on to see what happens to Cam on this insane mission he’s embarking on, and what consequently happens to the other lives that mission ends up touching.

Learn more about the novel and author at Jennifer Cody Epstein's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Painter from Shanghai.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Helsinki Blood"

With his first internationally published novel, Snow Angels, James Thompson proved himself Finland’s best and most popular representative in the rise of Nordic noir. It was selected as one of Booklist’s Best Crime Novel Debuts of the Year and nominated for an Edgar Award, an Anthony Award, and a Strand Critics Award. His novel, Lucifer’s Tears, has received critical acclaim from all quarters, including starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus, and was selected as one of the best novels of the year by Kirkus. Helsinki White was released to critical acclaim in 2012. The fourth book in the series, Helsinki Blood, was published in March, 2013. Thompson is also a reviewer for The New York Journal of Books and holds a Master’s degree from The University of Helsinki. The first three books in his Inspector Vaara series have been optioned for film.

Thompson applied the Page 69 Test to Helsinki Blood, and reported the following:

Page 69 opens a new plotline and theme in the novel. Vaara’s home has been vandalized, his family threatened. He and Sweetness caught the two men harassing Vaara, and in the street, in broad daylight, have beaten them to bloody pulps, even crippled one of them. A woman watched them do it, and then approached them. Her daughter, who has Down syndrome, has been abducted by human slave traders. The police aren’t interested. She heard Vaara is a man sympathetic to such plights. She asks for his help.

Vaara is in bad physical shape, suffering debilitating pain from gunshot wounds. His family life is a mess. Powerful men are out to get him. Referring to the men they just beat to jelly, the woman asks him if that’s what he does to bad people. He answers, “Sometimes.” She says, “Good. Please do that or something worse to whoever took my daughter.” He sees a chance for redemption, the possibility that a good act might gain him his wife’s forgiveness, give meaning to the destruction he’s wrought. He agrees to find the girl, and the tour de force begins.

Learn more about the book and author at James Thompson's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Snow Angels.

The Page 69 Test: Helsinki White.

My Book, The Movie: Helsinki White.

Writers Read: James Thompson.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Missing File"

D. A. Mishani is an Israeli crime writer, editor and literary scholar, specializing in the history of detective fiction.

He applied the Page 69 Test to The Missing File, his first novel and the first in a series featuring the police inspector Avraham Avraham, and reported the following:

I clearly remember writing page 69, the last page of the 4th chapter in The Missing File.

The chapter is told through the perspective of a school teacher, a neighbor of Ofer, the boy gone missing in the beginning of the novel. The neighbor, Ze'ev, joins the searches and tries to approach Inspector Avraham Avraham, my protagonist, who leads the investigation.

What does he want? It's not clear, not even to him. And did I know then? Not entirely. I had a vague idea - I knew he needed to tell him something important about the missing boy – but until he spoke to Inspector Avraham, I wasn't sure why. When both my characters finally met and talked, I was surprised by what they said.

On page 69 Ze'ev is on his way back home, leaving the searches after this short conversation. Suddenly, he remembers he told the police Inspector something he shouldn't have said. I think it's then that he understands he got himself involved in something that he may not know how to get out of. He embroiled himself in this investigation in a way that he didn't foresee.

I think I also understood then I was embroiled in this search more than I let myself know before - and that I was going to finish this novel, my first one. I couldn't leave Avraham anymore, nor Ze'ev or Ofer, the missing boy. Maybe this sentence from p. 69, about Ze'ev, also refers to me: "He could feel a sense of gloom spreading through him (…) was it because he had suddenly understood the seriousness of his actions?"

Learn more about the book and author at D. A. Mishani's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: The Missing File.

--Marshal Zeringue