"The Long Division"

Derek Nikitas teaches creative writing at Eastern Kentucky University. Pyres, his first novel, was an Edgar nominee.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Long Division, and reported the following:

The Long Division is an ensemble piece with five protagonists. Their stories converge, as the climax approaches, in increasingly more gut-wrenching ways. There's the Atlanta housecleaner who hits the road with stolen cash (an homage to Psycho's Marion Crane). The mentally tortured college student trying to escape his own accidental crime. The sheriff's deputy desperate to redeem himself and save his reputation. And then there's the sheriff's inhibited, introspective daughter, Erika. It's her viewpoint we get on page 69.

Her father is driving her home in his cruiser. There's some ironic conversation about how safe their town of Weymouth, NY is supposed to be. She doesn’t know there's been a double murder, but dad does, and he's not telling. There's discussion of a planned, bittersweet family trip to Costa Rica, an escape from the wintery darkness that is Western New York in February. The trip is also to be a last hurrah for Erika's mother. She's dying of cancer.

Page 69 is an introspective respite in the midst of all the craziness. It reinforces the doomed, noir-tinged, tone of the book--especially considering the fortuitous mention of the title. The Long Division is a reference to one character's obsession with what mathematics can say about our existence. It's a throwback to the old Chandler euphemism-for-death titles, like The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. It describes the families in the book, who have long been broken apart and are now hurtling back together. And, as on Page 69, it describes cancer as a metaphor for the malignancy of fate:

The malignant tumor was in the core of her mother's brain, spanning both hemispheres. It was butterfly shaped and when the wings spread themselves wide enough, like emerging from a chrysalis, Mom would die. The radiation held the wingspread back only temporarily. Invisible waves like raygun blasts through the cancer-cell helixes, but that cellular split was relentless long division. Just after Christmas, Mom's doctors had explained that she would die before her August wedding anniversary, probably months sooner. They advised her to quit her paralegal job, reconnect with her family, go on dream vacations--and all of it quickly.

Read an excerpt from The Long Division, and learn more about the book and author at the official Derek Nikitas website and blog.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"Finding Grace"

Donna VanLiere is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Christmas Hope series and Angels of Morgan Hill.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Finding Grace: A True Story About Losing Your Way In Life...And Finding It Again, and reported the following:

Page 69 is the beginning of chapter five in Finding Grace so the words don’t even begin until more than halfway down, leaving only one-and-a-half paragraphs! There is a quote from Simone Weil, a French philosopher and activist, which actually is a good representation of the book. It says, “Each thing that takes place, whether it be fortunate, unfortunate, or unimportant from our particular point of view, is a caress of God’s.” I go on to write, “That caress is grace at the end of our rope.”

I wrote Finding Grace after many years of speaking in front of conferences, organizations etc. I began sharing an experience from my childhood where I was molested by a neighbor before I even entered kindergarten. Men and women would approach me afterward with tears on their faces because it was a pain they had never been able to share. Many people encouraged me to write my story but if I wrote a book about my experience I wanted it to be relatable to the reader. I never wanted the reader to put the book down and say, “That book was about molestation,” or “That book was about adoption.” I wanted them to say, “That book was my life but only with different names!” Thankfully, men and women are saying just that!

Finding Grace has a double meaning: how I discovered the transforming power of grace as an adult and adopting our first daughter Grace from China in 2002. It was a long journey to get to that point in my life (to a state of grace and halfway around the world in China) but one that is relatable to so many lives—maybe even yours!

I am honored that so many book clubs have chosen Finding Grace as their club’s selection and continue to be humbled by their response. I hope you’ll enjoy it and pass it on to others.

Read an excerpt from Finding Grace, and learn more about the book and author at Donna VanLiere's website.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hell's Kitchen Homicide"

Writer/producer Charles Kipps has won an Emmy, a Peabody, and an Edgar Award.

Kipps’ television credits include Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (NBC), Little Bill (Nickelodeon), Fatherhood (Nickelodeon), The Cosby Mysteries (NBC), Columbo (ABC), and Law & Order: Criminal Intent (NBC). His film credits include Fat Albert, a feature film for Twentieth Century Fox co-written with Bill Cosby.

He is the author of two non-fiction books, Out of Focus and Cop Without A Badge.

Kipps applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Hell’s Kitchen Homicide, and reported the following:

In Hell’s Kitchen Homicide, NYPD Detective Conor Bard investigates the murder of a Mafia lawyer. Along the way Conor meets an exotic, young Albanian woman named Monica. On Page 69, Conor learns about Monica’s life in Albania.

A waiter arrived with menus. Monica scanned the page for a moment.

“Zuppa di porri,” Monica said. “Leek soup.”

“You like leeks?” Conor wanted to know.

“I like to eat them,” Monica replied. “But I didn’t like them so much when my mother baked them and then squeezed the liquid into my ear.”

Conor frowned. “Your ear?”

“That was the treatment for an earache in Albania. Squeezed leeks.”

“Did it work?” Conor asked.

“Yes.”

“Great. I’ll keep that in mind if I ever have an earache and can’t find a drugstore.”

Monica laughed. Conor was beginning to like the sound.

Page 69 represents a turning point in Hell’s Kitchen Homicide as Conor finds himself drawn in by the lovely Monica, who ultimately becomes a major character in the book.

Read an excerpt from Hell’s Kitchen Homicide, and learn more about the book and author at Charles Kipps's website.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Christmas Secret"

Donna VanLiere is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Finding Grace, The Christmas Hope series, and Angels of Morgan Hill.

She applied the Page 69 Test to The Christmas Secret, her latest novel, and reported the following:

The Christmas Secret has just been released and it’s the fifth novel in The Christmas Hope series. I write each of the novels to be stand-alone books so there’s no pressure for the reader to read the first four books in order to understand the fifth! The Christmas Secret is about a young, single mother named Christine who works hard as a waitress to provide for her two children, Zach and Haley. When she helps an elderly woman in distress, Christine gets to work late (again) and is promptly fired. Marshall Wilson, the owner of Wilson’s Department Store is determined to find the young woman who saved the life of Judy, his most trusted employee and sets Jason, his out-of-work grandson out on that mission. It’s the last thing Jason wants but maybe just what he needs.

Two scenes play out on page 69. The top part of the page begins with Marshall Wilson, who is setting Jason out to help find the mysterious woman who saved Judy’s life. The bottom of the page features Christine and her two children who need to get to the bank to deposit Christine’s check before she starts bouncing checks. This page is indicative of her life and the cycle of survival she finds herself in time and again and offers a great glimpse into the plot of The Christmas Secret. Christine selflessly helped an older woman who needed someone and because of that act there are people who want to find her and thank her. There are enormous roadblocks in Christine’s path but it’s right there under that boulder in the road that Christine discovers one of life’s greatest gifts. I hope you enjoy her journey!

Read more about the book and author at Donna VanLiere's website.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"Breaking the Bank"

Yona Zeldis McDonough is the author of the novels The Four Temperaments, In Dahlia's Wake, and Breaking the Bank.

She is also the editor of the essay collections The Barbie Chronicles: A Living Doll Turns Forty and All the Available Light: A Marilyn Monroe Reader. Her short fiction, articles, and essays have been published in anthologies as well as in numerous national magazines, and newspapers.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Breaking the Bank and reported the following:

Page 69 of Breaking the Bank is not necessarily the first page I would suggest to readers, but it is not a bad place to begin either. Mia Saul, the book’s protagonist, has gone out to a bar where her best friend is working. Her ex-husband has come into town and taken their daughter out for the evening; she is feeling lonely and bereft. She drinks a bit too much, and ends up sobbing in the ladies’ room while her friend tries to comfort her. This scene shows the reader a lot about who Mia is, and does a good job of articulating the grief she feels over her husband’s abandonment, her fierce attachment to her daughter, and her tendency to act impulsively and even rashly, especially when upset. All of these traits are important and are further developed as the book unfolds. And all of them have a big impact on what actually happens to Mia in the course of this novel. “Character determines,” plot is an old adage frequently trotted out in fiction writing classes, but I believe it to be true. If the character is fully conceived and well written, her actions will, in a sense determine themselves; she’ll take on a life of her own. That is what I tried to do with Mia, and I hope I have succeeded.

Read an excerpt from Breaking the Bank, and learn more about the author and her work at Yona Zeldis McDonough's website and blog.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ciao Bella"

Gina Buonaguro was born in New Jersey and now resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Janice Kirk was born and lives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. The authors of The Sidewalk Artist, they are now working on their third novel together.

They applied the Page 69 Test to their new novel, Ciao Bella, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Ciao Bella is actually quite representative of the novel as a whole. For Graziella, the daughter of a Canadian botanist, the quiet, cultured life she lived in Venice with her musician husband, Ugo, was everything she could’ve desired. But when Italy allied with Nazi Germany in 1940, her world changed forever. Ugo, trading his violin for a gun, joined the Resistance, while Graziella, now an “enemy alien,” was forced to seek refuge at his family’s farm in the nearby Euganean Hills. Having inherited her father’s gift for plants, she became both midwife and nursemaid to Ugo’s family. Her time in the Hills was not a happy one, not only because of the fear of bombing raids and Nazi reprisals but also because Ugo’s father and sisters were openly hostile to his choice of a foreigner as a wife. “Just until the war is over,” Ugo had promised, but it has been months since the Germans retreated, and no one has seen him since.

Just as she despairs she will be trapped forever with Ugo’s ungrateful family, along comes Frank, an American soldier waiting for the ship that will take him back home. As the summer unfolds, Frank begins to fill the void Ugo has left behind and Graziella slowly starts to embraces this unexpected chance at being happy again.

Booklist says this about the novel: “A compelling combination of romance, adventure, and serious thought, this slim novel is sure to appeal to many audiences.” And page 69 itself is exactly all that. It shows the developing attraction between Graziella and Frank but also Graziella’s conflict: How can she be attracted to Frank when she so longs for her husband’s return? It also shows Frank’s own complicated feelings as he decides just what and how much to tell Graziella about his time during the war – a struggle that intensifies as the novel progresses. As Frank relates his horrific story, the reader learns these are experiences not easily forgotten but that will continue to haunt both Graziella and Frank and influence everything they do from now on. For overall, Ciao Bella explores the possibilities of love and redemption in the wake of war, showing that some of the hardest decisions come only after the fighting has stopped.

Here is page 69:

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said, his eyes following her retreating hand as if he already missed it there on his own. She thought about putting it back, maybe even holding it, but he began again, and she felt the opportunity had passed. “We were up in the mountains near Cassino not long before the Allies broke through the line and marched to Rome.” He spoke softly, and she had to strain to hear his voice over the pounding rain. “All that lay between my regiment and the Germans was this little river. We’d spent a couple of days firing back and forth whenever we saw anything moving. It was spring, but it was still damned cold. Sorry, really cold. Anyway, we weren’t accomplishing much as we waited for this brigade of Brits to catch up with us. Then the real push was to happen. Cross the river and drive the Germans back. Keep pushing them north.”

More thunder rattled the house, and they listened for sounds from Giovanni’s room, but only his snoring was audible.

Frank took a sip of wine before resuming, the herbs in front of him forgotten. “Nobody was looking forward to this. In the hills, we were pretty safe, but once we were in that river, we were just sitting ducks. That’s why we did it at night. They had this plan. Send forty or so guys to sneak across the river and take the Germans out in their sleeping bags. It sounded like a stupid idea even then. They should have sent in planes.

“I wasn’t long in that river before I knew I was right. My feet sunk in the mud, and the water came up to my chest. I could barely move. By the time we reached the middle, the water was up around our necks. It felt like ice. Somewhere close to me a soldier began to cry, saying he couldn’t swim. Everyone was going shhh! shhh! and it all sounded louder than bombs dropping….”

Learn more about the book and authors on their website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

"New World Monkeys"

Nancy Mauro is a writer and has worked as a creative director at a Manhattan advertising agency. She has lived and worked in Toronto and in Vancouver where she was a fellow and graduate of the University of British Columbia's MFA program in creative writing. She is the recipient of several Ontario Art Council grants as well as Canadian Council grants for emerging writers. Her work has been nominated for the prestigious McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, received gold at the Western Magazine Awards, and placed in the international Toronto Star Fiction Contest. Mauro's short stories and nonfiction have appeared in various magazines, anthologies and newspapers.

She applied the Page 69 Test to New World Monkeys, her debut novel, and reported the following:

The Pervert on the Page

There’s a pervert on Page 69. He’s there on page 68 and continues through to page 70. In fact, open a copy of New World Monkeys to any chapter and you’ll find him: Lloyd, the intellectual, pear-shaped Peeping Tom and resident library pervert with a penchant for school girls in hiked-up kilts.

Page 69 reveals Lloyd deep in a getting-to-know you conversation with Lily, the female protagonist. Lily has just witnessed his botched lechery attempt on a teenage girl in the Osterhagen Lending Library stacks. But instead of repulsion—rather than report him to the librarian—she agrees to have a smoke with him in the courtyard. Now, this scene may signal to the squeamish reader that it’s time to put the book down. After all, what would possess Lily to do such a thing? Well, the truth is Lily’s a tightly wound young academic whose Ph.D. dissertation and marriage are both floundering. She’s sequestered herself in a small, upstate library in order to turn one (or both) around, but finds herself languishing and distracted.

“And you were impressed with my technique in the stacks? Unimpressed?” Lloyd gestures to the building.

“Yes.”

“Which is it? A critical analysis, please.”

“The heart was there,” Lily says and pinches the cigarette to death against the lip of fountain. “But your approach could use some work. You know, I saw you the other day. Coming out of the women’s bathroom.” She remembers his thumbs-up—as though she had been sitting there to field prospects for him or to keep watch.

“An old trick.” He nods. “This might surprise you Lily, but I’ve been a deviant my entire life.” Lloyd stands up, paces a bit. “I change locations, for sure. Same way a man of the earth approaches his hundred acres. You leave the ground idle one season and it’ll turn up lush wheat the next. Haven’t come around the Osterhagen library since the late nineties. And, Christ, the place is crawling!” He looks through the gate toward to the main building, licking his lips as though they were trimmed with honey. “Bad school girls in uniform. Just like MTV.”

The scene is, perhaps, resonant with the novel’s theme of ambition. Each character wants nothing more than to be really good at something, to become A Man of Importance. Lloyd, like Lily and her ad man husband Duncan, feel their young ambition running up against the realities of a world where someone is always better, quicker, smarter and pervier than you are. Lloyd is a Peeping Tom by trade who dreams of making the leap to Frotteurism (which is non-consensual touching). Lily perceives this, applies it to her own desires and makes one egregious mistake in the process: she rationalizes away the fact that Lloyd’s ambitions are deviant, immoral and against the law.

But a girl so tightly-wound must come undone. And in New World Monkeys that unspooling comes through Lily’s apprenticeship to Lloyd. Together they take to the alleyways and rooftops of Osterhagen with cathartic gusto. From the introductory exchange on Page 69 to Lloyd’s role as Svengali of Instinct, it is Lily the disciple who will soon be chin-upping herself to a second story window sash.

Read an excerpt from New World Monkeys and learn more about the book and author at Nancy Mauro's website and blog.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Wrong Mother"

Sophie Hannah is a bestselling crime fiction writer and poet. Her psychological thrillers include Little Face and Hurting Distance.

She applied the Page 69 Test to The Wrong Mother (UK title: The Point of Rescue), and reported the following:

It's amazing how representative of the novel p. 69 is! Here's the blurb of the book:

Sally is watching the news with her husband when she hears a name she ought not to recognise: Mark Bretherick. Last year, a work trip Sally had planned was cancelled at the last minute. Desperate for a break from her busy life juggling work and a young family, Sally didnt tell her husband that the trip had fallen through. Instead, she booked a week off work and treated herself to a secret holiday. All she wanted was a bit of peace some time to herself but it didnt work out that way. Because Sally met a man: Mark Bretherick.

Now, to Sally's shock, Bretherick is on the news. All the details are the same: where he lives, his job, his wife Geraldine and daughter Lucy. Except that the photograph on the TV screen is of a man Sally has never seen before. And Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick are both dead...

On page 69 of the novel, Sally is telling the reader about her fling with Mark (or rather the man who called himself Mark) at the hotel. All the main themes of the book are present on that page: infidelity, trust, betrayal, perfect and not-so-perfect mothers, men's attitudes to their wives. This page really does give a flavour of the novel as a whole. And there's also a very important plot clue contained here too. I think, on the basis of this evidence, the page 69 test really works!

Page 69:

…coincidence. I told him about my work, which he seemed to find interesting - he asked me lots of questions about it. He mentioned his wife Geraldine all the time and seemed to be very much in love with her. He didn’t say this, but it was clear she was very important to him. In fact, I smiled to myself because, although he was obviously highly intelligent, he was also one of those men who cannot utter a sentence without it containing his wife’s name. If I asked him what he thought about something (as I did many times, not that evening but later, during the course of our week together), he would tell me, and then immediately afterwards he would tell me what Geraldine thought.

I asked if she worked. He told me that for years she ran the IT helpdesk at the Garcia Lorca Institute in Rawndesley, but that she’d always wanted to stop working when she had a child, and so when Lucy was born she did. ‘Lucky her,’ I said. Although I would hate not to work, I felt a pang of envy when it occurred to me how easy and calm Geraldine’s life must be.

On that first night at the bar, Mark Bretherick said one odd thing that stuck in my mind. When I asked him if he thought I was immoral for lying to my husband about where I was, he said, ‘From where I’m sitting, you seem pretty close to perfect.’

I laughed in his face.

‘I’m serious,’ he said. ‘You’re imperfect, and that’s what’s perfect about you. Geraldine’s a perfect wife and mother in the traditional sense, and it sometimes makes me…’ He stopped then and turned the conversation back to me. ‘You’re selfish.’ He said this as if he found it admirable. ‘Practically all you’ve told me tonight is what you need, what you want, how you feel.’

I told him to sod off.

Far from being put off, he said, ‘Listen. Spend the week with me.’ I stared at him, speechless. The week? I’d been…

Learn more about the book and author at Sophie Hannah's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hurting Distance.

The Page 69 Test: Little Face.

My Book, The Movie: Little Face and Hurting Distance.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"Flesh and Fire"

Laura Anne Gilman is the author of the bestselling Retrievers novels as well as The Vineart War trilogy. Her short fiction has appeared in major anthologies and magazines, running the spectrum from mainstream to science fiction to horror.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Flesh and Fire, the first of The Vineart War books, and reported the following:

The world of Flesh and Fire is an alternate 14th century, where the religion and culture of the ‘civilized nations’ are based around the use of spellwines, crafted by an elite – and isolated – group of magicians known as Vinearts. Vinearts maintain magic, the Lords hold political and military power, and the Washers maintain the balance between them, and keep the common people safe from both sides. It’s a system that has worked for almost two thousand years.

Into this society comes Jerzy, a young slave only recently discovering his own magic. In a normal time, his life would be simple, if rewarding, and he would always know his place within the world. But it’s not a normal time…

Page 69 of Flesh and Fire shows Jerzy thrown into a situation both new to him and new to his world, as Vinearts did not learn fighting skills, traditionally. Is this indicative of the entire book? It certainly sets much of the tone, since how he reacts to is telling, and indicates how he will react to all that will come his way in the near future….

His first test does not go too well.

Master Malech chuckled, as though Cai had said something amusing, and left them to it. Jerzy stared at Cai, half fascinated but slightly uncertain.

“Master Vineart was right: you stand like a slave, not a man, and certainly not like a magician! We’ll begin at once, and soon your body will have the right of it. Ready yourself, boy!”

Jerzy had no time to ask what he was to ready himself for before Cai had him in the air and landing hard on the morning-cool flagstones.

“Up. Again. Be ready this time.”

The book isn’t just about growing up, although it’s certainly a coming-of-age novel in many ways. Fantasy, at its heart, is about discovery: both of yourself, and the deeper magics of the world around you. In Flesh and Fire, the world itself is changing under stresses both external and internal, and all the characters – not only Jerzy – must learn to rethink themselves both in light of who they were, and who they wish to be – and what legacy they want to leave to their world.

Read an excerpt from Flesh and Fire, and learn more about the book and author at Laura Anne Gilman's website and blog.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"Gone to the Dogs"

We Are All Fine Here, Mary Guterson's first novel, was published in 2005. Her recently-released second novel, Gone to the Dogs, features a dog-napping heroine named Rena. "This book is not autobiographical," Guterson insists ... "except maybe a little bit."

She applied the Page 69 Test to Gone to the Dogs and reported the following:

Page 69 of my book is one of my least favorite pages. In fact, I almost cut it from the book, but decided to leave it in to amuse my father. Of course, he didn't recognize himself despite the fact that the ENTIRE PAGE describes EXACTLY his parenting skills. I mean, he is FAMOUS for the holler, the stare-down and the stomp. They are his most inspired legacy. Oh, well. I've found that the people I draw from never see themselves in my characters, and the people I don't draw from at all are positive they are in my books. Kind of weird, really.

Learn more about the book and author at Mary Guterson's website.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Mary Guterson & Sparky.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"Loot the Moon"

Mark Arsenault is a Shamus-nominated mystery writer, a journalist, a runner, hiker, political junkie and eBay fanatic who collects memorabilia from the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

His Billy Povich series began with Gravewriter, a noir thriller praised for a fusion of suspense, humor and human tenderness.

He applied the Page 69 Test to Loot the Moon, the second book in the series, and reported the following:

Page 69 from Loot the Moon is a scene told from the viewpoint of a secondary character, Martin Smothers, a public defender who hurls himself relentlessly against the advancing bulldozer of evidence gathered by the prosecution, and with great frequency, loses in court. It’s not that Martin is a bad lawyer, it’s that his clients are usually guilty.

I’ve covered many criminal trials in my other life as a journalist. And I’m always enthralled by the stagecraft of a good piece of lawyering. Some of the most passionate lawyers I’ve watched were public defenders who represented some of the most violent and vile people among us. The lawyers assume that their clients are probably guilty, but that’s not the point. Their passion is for the Constitution. These people inspired the character of Martin Smothers.

On page 69, Martin is suffering through a sentencing hearing with a client named Stokely, who sits convicted of motor vehicle homicide. The last two paragraphs on the page are my blatant tribute to the public defenders I have quietly admired:

At trial, the prosecutor had pounded the facts. Martin could only pound the table. The Constitution provides that no matter how cold your heart and how terrible your crime, you deserve a competent and robust defense. If Martin could have won the case on some arcane technicality, he would have gone for the prosecutor’s throat. He gave Stokely a tenacious fight, and lost.

Sometimes, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, justice prevails.

Martin sees the world in black-and-white, though he’s cursed to be stuck in a novel full of grays. Throughout the story, I use him as a moral measuring stick for comparison to the other characters, even though Martin’s clarity makes him much more an exception than the rule.

Read an excerpt from Loot the Moon, and learn more about the author and his work at Mark Arsenault's website.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

"Death Will Help You Leave Him"

Elizabeth Zelvin is a New York city psychotherapist and author of a mystery series featuring recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler. Her debut mystery, Death Will Get You Sober, was nominated for a David award for Best Mystery Novel of 2008 and for an Anthony award for cover design.

She applied the Page 69 Test to Death Will Help You Leave Him, the second Bruce Kohler mystery, and reported the following:

In Death Will Help You Leave Him, recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler and his friends Barbara and Jimmy have to find a killer when a friend becomes the prime suspect in her abusive boyfriend’s murder. Bruce must juggle the investigation, his sobriety, a crush on the bereaved girlfriend, and the lure of his compelling but destructive ex-wife, who’s on a collision course of her own.

Readers of the first in the series, Death Will Get You Sober, were drawn into the quirky relationship between Bruce and his friends. Barbara especially aroused strong reactions, which ranged from admiration of a strong woman to finding her “a hoot” to inquiring whether anyone had told the author they’d “like to smack her.” She’s a world-class codependent who can’t resist helping and minding other people’s business. These traits serve her well as an amateur sleuth but get her into a lot of trouble.

At the bottom of page 68, Barbara wants to pursue a contact with a drug dealer who might know something about the murder.

“Barbara,” Jimmy said, “these are dangerous people.”

“But if we’re careful—I mean really careful, Jimmy—it’s just talking.”

He shook his head and spoke to me.

“She doesn’t get it.”

That’s Barbara. One minute it’s drug dealers, the next, it’s the Sopranos. On page 69, Jimmy spots a website for an Italian bakery run by the victim’s family.

“Iacone’s Bakery. Making Brooklyn lick its lips since 1946. Nice Web site.”

“That doesn’t sound much like organized crime, does it?”

“Not connected, just cannoli,” I said.

“It doesn’t prove anything,” Jimmy said. “Crime families nowadays go in for legitimate businesses. They could be laundering money as they make the biscotti. Hey, these look good. Il pasticciotto, il bocconotto, la sfogliatella.” He rolled the words out sonorously. “Nice pictures.”

“Show me,” Barbara said.

“What about work?”

“It’s okay if I’m late. ...Hey, these look good,” she said. “That settles it, this is my assignment.”

Page 69 is and isn’t representative of the book as a whole. Between the banter and the cannoli, you might think it was a cozy. It’s not. The grim realities of alcoholism, drug dealing, addictive relationships, and domestic violence are central to the story. But the overall theme of the series is not addiction itself, but recovery. And the essence of recovery is hope. The grit and the fun are inextricably mixed, just as they are in the church basements of AA.

Learn more about the author and her work at Elizabeth Zelvin's website, her MySpace page, and the group blog, Poe's Deadly Daughters.

The Page 99 Test: Death Will Get You Sober.

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

--Marshal Zeringue