The Page 69 Test

 Annamaria On Monday

As usual it is still Sunday as I write this, and I have just finished a wonderful conversation with Verena Rose.  For those of you who don’t know her, she wears every hat in the crime writing community and is treasured in every category: author, reviewer, editor, publisher, blogger, book seller, podcaster. It was the seventh of those activities that brought us together this week, when she interview me for a future podcast.

She sent me her questions in advance, and they were interesting and fun to discuss, and different from the typical ones.  Number seven on her list was not even a question.  It said "The page 69 Test.

The test was invented by Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher most famous for coining the phase "The medium is the message."  He also had an interesting piece of advice for someone unsure whether to buy a book. He suggested that they read page 69 to see if they found it interesting.  During our conversation, I took the test for my latest--A Death on the Lord's Day.

Here is my page 69: 

     “So you ­ were the one who moved the corpse ­ after Mrs. Tolliver

and her ­ father had seen it. Where did you put it?”

      “When I took it away from ­ there, I put it in the bush, for the

hyenas. Matua was not a Christian.” He paused for a few breaths.

“But I was braver than that.” His voice was strong now, almost

prideful. “I was the one who put the body of Matua in front of the

farm of Bwana Tolliver.”

     This revelation jolted Kwai Libazo. He kept calm. “Matua Jomo

was not killed in the place where he was found lying, near the Tolliver

farm?” he made the words half statement, half question.

    “No.”

    Kwai Libazo asked the question he had heard the Baroness ask

when she dined with Mr. and Mrs. Tolliver. “Why would a person

want to drop a corpse in such a place?”

Joseph said nothing.

    “Answer me!” Kwai could not keep the urgency, the demand out

of his voice.

     “No,” Joseph said. His voice ­ every bit as determined. “I have

already told you too much. I have already told you—­ Mimi mimi

mwogaa.”

     Kwai suppressed an impulse to grab the man and shake him.

Why, he demanded of himself. Why would this man take the corpse

of a friend—­ his tribal ­ brother—­ and drop in front of the Tolliver

farm? It took only six beats of his heart for the answer to flash into

his head. It shocked him so that he spoke it out loud.

    “You wanted Bwana Tolliver to find the killer.”

    “I did,” Joseph said. He moved ­ toward the light, and the look in

his eyes said he was making the same demand of Kwai Libazo.

    “Then you know who the killer was.”

    A level stare was Joseph’s only answer.

    Frustrated, angered, Kwai stood and towered over the man still

seated on the floor. “I can tell the police that you are concealing

The first word on the next page is "'evidence.' "

So what do you think?  Would this bit encourage you or discourage you?  To be fair to McLuan, he said his readers should not make page 69 the only deciding  factor.  But to keep an open mind about the book in question.

And to you, my fellow authors:  What about you?  Do you care to share a page 69 of one of your books?