Pg. 99: Lindsey Davis's "Saturnalia"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Lindsey Davis's Saturnalia.

The plot of the novel, from the author:

It is the Season of Misrule in Rome, sheer misery for Falco. Uppity slaves give orders to their cringing masters, masters try to hide in their studies, women are goosed, statues wobble, a prince has a broken heart, Helena’s brother will not decide if his heart is broken or not, children are sick and even the dog can’t stand it any more. As the festival meant for healing grudges riotously proceeds, a young man who has everything to live for dies a horrific death while the security of the Empire is compromised by the usual mixture of top brass incompetence, bureaucratic in-fighting and popular indifference. The barbarians are not just at the gates, they are right inside - and that’s just the bombasts in the Praetorian Guard, encouraged by the pernicious Chief Spy.

Doctors are making a killing. Alternative therapists are ecstatic. Members of the Didius family are about to receive some extremely unusual seasonal gifts. But for the non-persons on the fringes of society life is not so jolly, and dark spirits walk abroad (available for hire through the usual agents). Falco has a race against time to find a dangerous missing person, aided and hindered by faces from the past, while running the gauntlet of the best and worst Roman society can offer as Saturnalia entertainment. Unfortunately for him.

This is the one with the giant vegetables.

Among the praise for Saturnalia:

"Yes we’re back in the brilliantly realized Ancient Rome of Lindsey Davis again – and what unalloyed pleasure it is!"
--Good Book Guide

"It’s another entertaining adventure in which as usual a lot of wine is drunk…"
--Sunday Telegraph

‘‘The fans’ expectations are higher than ever and are unlikely to be disappointed"
--The Bookseller

“Like visiting old friends in a familiar and endearing, if sometimes bizarre, environment. Jokes and skullduggery crowd the pages.”
--Guardian

“Falco wisecracks his way through the empire’s sleazy underside ... Davis’s crimes are wickedly convoluted — real fun.”
--Time

Visit Lindsey Davis's website and read an excerpt from Saturnalia.

The Page 99 Test: Saturnalia.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sylvia Warsh's novels as movies

The current feature at "My Book, The Movie" has author Sylvia Warsh developing casting ideas for her three Dr. Rebecca Temple mysteries, Season of Iron, Find Me Again, and To Die in Spring.

Warsh's contribution opens:

As much as I fantasize about a movie from one of my Dr. Rebecca Temple books, the reality is that they would be very expensive to translate into film. They’re not only set in 1979 Toronto, they tend to include stories from other historical eras, particularly the 2nd World War. In my latest, Season of Iron, the book follows two stories — Rebecca in 1979, and Frederika Eisenbaum in 1930s Berlin during the Nazi era. That’s not as complicated (read expensive to produce) as my second book, Find Me Again which won an Edgar. In it, Rebecca finds an historical manuscript about Catherine the Great that sweeps back to 18th century London, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg. Not that it would be impossible to do. They filmed War and Peace, right?

Read on to see who Warsh has in mind for film versions of Rebecca and other characters.

Visit Sylvia Warsh's website and read excerpts from all three novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Wyn Cooper reading?

You may know Wyn Cooper's work best from the popular song “Fun,” a poem from his first book which was turned into Sheryl Crow’s Grammy-winning song “All I Wanna Do.”

He has published three books of poems: The Country of Here Below, The Way Back, and Postcards from the Interior, as well as a chapbook, Secret Address, and many more poems in literary journals and magazines.

He is the author of the current feature at "Writers Read."

Learn more about Wyn Cooper's work at his website. Some late breaking news not yet posted there includes poems forthcoming in Poetry, Southern Review, and Crazyhorse. He and Madison Bell are going into the studio next month to record their second cd, which is based in part on poems from Cooper's most recent book, Postcards from the Interior. Songs from their first cd, Forty Words for Fear, have been used on five television shows in the past year.

Read on to discover what Wyn Cooper has been reading.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Kate Pepper's "Here She Lies"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Here She Lies by Kate Pepper.

About the book, from the author's website:

When she discovers e-mail evidence of her husband's infidelity, Annie Milliken is shattered. Dismissing his pleas of innocence, she takes their baby daughter and goes to the one person she has always trusted: her twin sister, Julie. Annie and her sister soon become as close as they were growing up, spending their days together, dressing the same, sharing the baby. But when Annie applies for a job, everything comes undone. Her credit cards are stolen just as she's arrested for grand larceny. The police realize she is the victim of identity theft, but she has yet to understand the true scale of the crime. For when Annie turns to Julie for help, she finds that her twin sister has disappeared ... along with her baby. Now, with her daughter -- and her own life -- on the line, Annie is going to fight for what is hers.

Among the advance praise for Here She Lies:

"Besides being a great thriller, Here She Lies gives readers an incredible look at the consequences of identity theft and how it impacts the victims. Annie’s love for her sterile twin is so strong and so deep that thinking bad thoughts about her sibling feels like a betrayal of the person she loves most next to her daughter. Bobby is a great character willing to be dominated by a stronger woman. Kate Pepper rolls up the tension in this cleverly written suspense laden urban crime thriller."
-–Harriet Klausner, Amazon’s #1 reviewer

"Pepper's newest whodunit…is a suspenseful, well-written yarn that will leave most readers guessing until the final twist."
--Publishers Weekly

Visit Kate Pepper's website and her blog, and listen to her read an excerpt from Here She Lies.

The Page 69 Test: Here She Lies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Anne Perry's favorite fiction rooted in history

Anne Perry, who has just published We Shall Not Sleep, the fifth and final novel in her World War I series, named her five "favorite fictional tales rooted in history" for Opinion Journal.

One of her picks:

Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

On the surface this is a detective story set during the World War II bombing of London. The destruction--not only of the city but of what previously had been the certainties of life--is painted in a hundred intimate touches. We taste the constant dirt, hear the sirens, bombs and the whine of aircraft. There are shortages of almost everything, and there is a tireless inventiveness to "make do and mend." Against this backdrop in 1940, two young detectives in the Peculiar Crimes Unit investigate the Palace Phantom, a killer who is stalking the cast of a London stage production. But "Full Dark House" is really a novel about the lifelong friendship of two very different men and the qualities that survive time and disaster: tolerance, kindness, good humor and courage.

Read about Number One on Perry's list. It would top my list, too.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bill McKibben's best books picks

Bill McKibben, who recently put his new book Deep Economy to the Page 69 Test, chose a list of "best books" for The Week magazine.

One title from the list:

Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams

Another powerful voice from the arid West, Tempest Williams tells in this powerful book the story of both natural and human decline. Read it and weep -- but also read it and find yourself full of new resolve.

Read more about McKibben's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Bill Crider reading?

The prolific Bill Crider has been very good to the CftAR blogs: he contributed Page 69 Test items for A Mammoth Murder and Murder Among the OWLS as well as an excellent entry for "My Book, The Movie."

And now he's the author of today's feature at "Writers Read."

He tagged books by Donald Hamilton, Robert Crais, Donald Bain, Richard Wheeler, and others.

Check out the whole story.

Visit Crider's website and his blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: L.C. Hayden's "Why Casey Had to Die"

Today's entry at the Page 69 Test: L.C. Hayden's Why Casey Had to Die.

About the book, from the publisher:

Casey Secrist, a college student, is murdered. Her boyfriend is found guilty. Twenty years later, Detective Harry Bronson, who originally worked on the case, once again becomes involved. It begins when Bronson is hired to be a consultant for a mystery convention in Arizona. The attendees are supposed to solve a make-believe murder. Much to Bronson's surprise, the fictitious murder parallels Casey's death. Bronson investigates who perpetrated the charade and why. In so doing, he confronts the conference organizer, L'ee (pronounced el-ee) Chalmers who has no idea what's going on. Bronson's investigation leads him to Tom and Marie O'Day who seem to know more than they're saying. There's also the mysterious strangers Trent Powers and Norman Childes. Another suspect, Katherine Shepard, stirs trouble and someone named Sam stalks Bronson. When Trent Powers turns up dead, Bronson knows that someone is willing to kill again to keep the past hidden.

Among the early praise for the novel:

"A retired cop, a cold case, and murder at a convention honoring Dorothy L. Sayers. Entertainment guaranteed. What more could a mystery fan ask for?"
--Bill Crider

"Why Casey Had to Die fits squarely into the mystery book genre, plot- and character-wise. Bronson fits the image of "hard-boiled" detective so commonly found in mystery books, yet he is so much more than that, largely because of his interaction with his wife. And his wife is a delight, both what you would expect and what you wouldn't expect - kind of like Harry Bronson himself. I was surprised by the ending and the book kept me up late one night just so I could finish it. In my life, that's always the sign of a good read."
--Jessica Powers

"Look out Nora Roberts, here comes L.C. Hayden. Why Casey Had to Die is a twisted, roller coaster murder mystery ride that will take you over the river and through the woods before the reader ever understands who's going down and why. Five stars."
--Lillian Cauldwell

"Who is Harry Bronson? He likes to ask questions but very rarely answers them. He likes his coffee and loves his wife, Carol. If you haven't read What Others Know, do yourself a favor. Read it first. Upon completion, you will need to know Why Casey Had to Die.... As I read this mystery, I did not want to stop and knew that if the phone rang, I would not answer it. I wanted no interruptions. It has been a long time I have been this invested in such a well-crafted book; I literally could not put it down. I await the next Harry Bronson installment."
--Carla Johnson

Check out the author's website to learn more about Why Casey Had To Die and to read an excerpt.

The Page 69 Test: Why Casey Had to Die.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Hardy's "The Woodlanders"

Between the publication of the arguably more famous novels The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), Thomas Hardy wrote The Woodlanders (1887).

The Hardy scholar Penny Boumelha of The University of Adelaide, who wrote the introduction to the Oxford World Classics edition of The Woodlanders, generously agreed to apply the "Page 99 Test" to the novel.

Read the results of her analysis of page 99 and its relationship to the novel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Eric Paul Shaffer's "Lāhaina Noon"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Eric Paul Shaffer's Lāhaina Noon.

About the book, from the publisher:

Lāhaina Noon is the moment when tropical sun shines straight down. No shadows darken that astonishing moment of illumination, and Hawai´i is where it happens. Lāhaina Noon, Eric Paul Shaffer’s fifth book, contains poems of Maui that reveal a clarity and sense of place as deep as lines of Billy Collins, profound as Gary Snyder, and direct as Jim Harrison.

Among the praise for Lāhaina Noon:

“The arrival of a new collection of Shaffer’s precise, graceful, witty, luminous work makes for a happy day in the Fowler household. No one is better at peeling away a single, ordinary moment until the whole world has been revealed.”
— Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club, Sarah Canary, and Sister Noon

“Lāhaina Noon is not only a specific study of Maui, but a brilliant examination of a human’s place in the cosmos. Eric Paul Shaffer’s clear, sane, poems will help you understand where you are wherever you are.”
— Sara Backer, author of American Fuji

“Eric Paul Shaffer’s poems, well-crafted and wise, don’t speak from the mind, the heart, the spirit — those are our divisions; they speak from the whole, integrated mammal he is — the sort of voice we need more of on this great Earth.”
— J. D. Whitney, author of Grandmother Says and Word of Mouth

“Eric Paul Shaffer, shadowless man of Lahaina Noon — He’s in camo — You think you see him but he isn’t there — He is like earth shine on dark side of the moon — He is writing down his life as it happens — Mockingbird listening to Mozart — Tracking Big Ursa through night sky — He tells us what he saw when sky crack open like blue Easter egg — Epiphanies that comprise our daily life.”
— Albert Saijo, author of Outspeaks: A Rhapsody and Trip Trap (with Jack Kerouac and Lew Welch)

“Like a magic lantern, Shaffer is a bearer of light. At times his poetry becomes so incandescent it makes you just sit in wonder. The rest of the time it reveals lush landscape and uncommon wisdom. Pay attention. This is the dawning of a major talent.”
— Steven Taylor Goldsberry, author of Luzon and The Writer's Book of Wisdom

Visit the publisher's website to learn more about Lāhaina Noon.

The Page 69 Test: Lāhaina Noon.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Robert W. Bennett reading?

The current featured author at Writers Read: Robert Bennett, Nathaniel L. Nathanson Professor of Law at the Northwestern University School of Law and author of, most recently, Taming the Electoral College.

Bennett's contribution to the blog opens:

I saw an old friend recently who at eighty remains one of Chicago's most active and engaged citizens. He reported that he had cancelled his subscriptions to daily newspapers. He glances at them at the office on occasion and reads the New York Review of Books regularly, but has moved the focus of his daily reading to books, largely dealing with history. And that doesn't keep him from an active involvement in the life of the city, and indeed the nation. I'm sorely tempted. The New York Times takes up a good deal of my evenings, and articles and books related to work the reading time during the day. To be sure, a good deal of that gives me great pleasure, sometimes even unexpected, as in the case of the book manuscript I recently reviewed for a publisher seeking the traditional outside stamp of approval. I'm not ready to make my friend's leap yet, but part of me admires his bold move.

See what books Bennett has been reading.

The Page 69 Test: Robert Bennett's Taming the Electoral College.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about forgetting

Sam Taylor is the former pop culture correspondent for the Observer. His new novel, The Amnesiac, tells the story of James Purdew, a man obsessed with uncovering the events of three years of his life about which he remembers nothing.

He named his top 10 books about forgetting for the Guardian.

Number two on his list:

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K Dick

Not a novel (though I could just as easily have chosen A Scanner Darkly or Valis or Time Out of Joint, to name a few), this is the fifth volume of Dick's collected short stories, and contains two almost perfect examples of the amnesia genre: The Electric Ant, in which a man discovers that he is not a man; and the title story, which was made into the hit movie Total Recall. One puzzling but apt feature of Dick's stories is that it is very difficult to remember their plots even a few weeks after reading them.

Before you forget, click over and read about Taylor's chart-topper.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: "Welcome to Everytown"

The current feature at the Page 99 test: Julian Baggini 's new book, Welcome to Everytown.

About the book, from the publisher:

What do the English think? Every country has a dominant set of beliefs and attitudes concerning everything from how to live a good life, how we should organize society, and the roles of the sexes. Yet despite many attempts to define our national character, what might be called the nation's philosophy has remained largely unexamined. Until now. Philosopher Julian Baggini pinpointed postcode S66 on the outskirts of Rotherham, as England in microcosm – an area which reflected most accurately the full range of the nation's inhabitants, its most typical mix of urban and rural, old and young, married and single. He then spent six months living there, immersing himself in this typical English Everytown, in order to get to know the mind of a people.

It sees the world as full of patterns and order, a view manifest in its enjoyment of gambling. It has a functional, puritanical streak, evident in its notoriously bad cuisine. In the English mind, men should be men and women should be women (but it's not sure what children should be). Baggini's account of the English is both a portrait of its people and a personal story about being an alien in your own land. Sympathetic but critical, serious yet witty, Welcome to Everytown shows a country in which the familiar becomes strange, and the strange familiar.

Among the praise for Welcome to Everytown:

"This is a thoughtful, sympathetic portrait of white working-class life which is essential reading"
— Guardian

"Intelligent and resourceful... (with) many fascinating observations"
— Book Magazine

"Many books have sought the essence of the English character through films, literature and history. Few set out to ask the ordinary English what they think. Baggini brings a refreshing empathy"
— Financial Times

"This book is about what happened when he - bravely, fascinatingly - decided to break free of his comfort zone and go in search of what the real England is like... Baggini turns out to be a sensitive observer who takes people and places on their own terms. He is also good at examining his own prejudices and fears"
— Independent

"What sets Baggini's account apart is the fascinating localised detail of the lives of ordinary British people... What really makes this worth reading though, is Baggini's sophisticated, open-minded analysis"
— Psychologies Magazine

Visit Baggini's website, the publisher's page for Welcome to Everytown, and The Philosophers' Magazine online.

The Page 99 test: Welcome to Everytown.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Vanishing Point," the movie

The current feature at My Book, The Movie: Mary Sharratt's The Vanishing Point.

Before clicking over to see who the author imagines directing and acting in an adaptation of her novel, try to pick your own cast. Here are the basics for the story and the characters:

Set in 17th century Maryland, The Vanishing Point tells the story of two star-crossed sisters entwined in a mystery. The older sister, May Powers, leaves her native England for an arranged marriage to a tobacco heir in Colonial Maryland. When Hannah at last arrives at the backwater plantation, her sister has vanished and her grief-stricken brother-in-law, Gabriel, is entirely alone. Did May die in childbirth, as he claims, or is something darker at work? Hannah, haunted by her lost sister and torn by her unexpected feelings for Gabriel, embarks on a twisting maze toward discovery.

Read on for Sharratt's casting ideas.

Read a profile of Mary Sharratt on NakedAuthors.com, an interview with her at Literary Mama, and a conversation with her.

Sharratt's acclaimed first novel, Summit Avenue, is now in its third printing. Her second novel, The Real Minerva, explores the theme of female outlaws in a 1920s Minnesota town.

She is co-editor of Bitch Lit: "A refreshing alternative to Chick Lit, Bitch Lit is a smart and subversive celebration of female anti-heroes."

Visit Mary Sharratt's official website and read an excerpt from The Vanishing Point.

The Page 69 Test: The Vanishing Point.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jeffrey Bean reading?

Jeffrey Bean is the 2006-08 Axton Fellow in Poetry at the University of Louisville.

I recently read and enjoyed his poem in Slate, "Major Third," so I asked him what he was reading.

Visit Writers Read to see what he replied.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: "The Peabody Sisters"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: Megan Marshall's The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism.

About the book, from the publisher:

Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia Peabody were in many ways our American Brontes. The story of these remarkable sisters — and their central role in shaping the thinking of their day — has never before been fully told. Twenty years in the making, Megan Marshall's monumental biograpy brings the era of creative ferment known as American Romanticism to new life. Elizabeth, the oldest sister, was a mind-on-fire thinker. A powerful influence on the great writers of the era — Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau among them — she also published some of their earliest works. It was Elizabeth who prodded these newly minted Transcendentalists away from Emerson's individualism and toward a greater connection to others. Mary was a determined and passionate reformer who finally found her soul mate in the great educator Horace Mann. The frail Sophia was a painter who won the admiration of the preeminent society artists of the day. She married Nathaniel Hawthorne — but not before Hawthorne threw the delicate dynamics among the sisters into disarray. Marshall focuses on the moment when the Peabody sisters made their indelible mark on history. Her unprecedented research into these lives uncovered thousands of letters never read before as well as other previously unmined original sources. The Peabody Sisters casts new light on a legendary American era. Its publication is destined to become an event in American biography.

Among the praise for The Peabody Sisters:

"Outstanding ... Marshall has distilled 20 years of research into a book that brings the sisters to life."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"An engrossing account, replete with both penetrating insights and interesting details."
--Mary Ellen Quinn, Booklist, ALA, starred review

"An excellent biography ... a colorful and sympathetic portrait of these remarkable women."
--Francine Prose, New York Times Book Review

"A stunning work of biography and intellectual history ... the intellectual equivalent of a triple axel."
--William Grimes, New York Times

"[A] terrific read and fascinating history."
--Rachel Kadish, author of Tolstoy Lied

"This monumental biography answers every question about its subjects but one: Why aren't the Peabody sisters famous? . . . Vibrant."
--Sue Corbett, People

"The real fascination is in [the Peabody sisters'] linked lives, and those have now been ably re-created."
--Michael Kenney, Boston Globe

The Peabody Sisters was a Pulitzer finalist in biography and memoir in 2006, and has won the Mark Lynton History Prize, the Frances Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians, and the Massachusetts Book Award in nonfiction.

Marshall has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, Slate, and other publications. She is now at work on a biography of Ebe Hawthorne, sister of Nathaniel, for which she has received a Radcliffe Institute fellowship.

She wrote in Slate about reading the Peabody sisters' letters.

The Page 99 Test: The Peabody Sisters.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Ravi Batra's "The New Golden Age"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Ravi Batra's The New Golden Age.

About the book, from the publisher:

In The New Golden Age, bestselling author and economist Ravi Batra identifies the roadblocks to economic prosperity--and what we need to do to overcome them. Bringing the same insight and expertise that made books like The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism international bestsellers, Batra takes on falling minimum wages, corporate scandals, rocketing oil prices, and many of the other crises facing the world economy. He also offers an expansive, optimistic vision of how the international community can address them and bring about something historically unprecedented: true global economic prosperity.

Among the early praise for The New Golden Age:

"The analysis is keen and provocative, and the conclusions unorthodox as ever."
--Publishers Weekly

"Dr. Batra vividly portrays the way in which public disgust for corruption, both corporate and federal, is becoming a serious force for political change."
--Dr. W. Curtiss Priest, Director, Center for Information, Technology, & Society, MIT

Among the praise for Ravi Batra:

"When it comes to the bottom line so beloved of economists, one can learn a lot about events by thinking about them in cyclical regularities, of which Batra gives a novel and brilliant exposition."
--Lester C. Thurow

"Ravi Batra has made an outstanding reputation in the United States as an international economic theorist in the best Western tradition."
--Leonard Silk, New York Times

Ravi Batra is the author of Greenspan's Fraud as well as the international bestsellers as The Downfall of Capitalism and Communism, The Great Depression of 1990, and The Myth of Free Trade. He is professor of economics at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

The Page 69 Test: The New Golden Age.

--Marshal Zeringue

Michael Ondaatje: 5 most important books

In the April 23, 2007 issue of Newsweek, Booker Prize-winning novelist Michael Ondaatje named his five most important books ... after limiting "himself to 20th-century works and assum[ing] Faulkner, Cather and García Márquez went without saying."

Read about all five titles.

Ondaatje also picked a book and panned a book using other criteria:

A classic that, on rereading, was disappointing:

Ideal Marriage by Dr. Th. H. Van De Velde. A marriage manual. I stole it from my mother's shelf. It was a turn-on when I was 14. It's not a turn-on at 74.

The book you care most about having your children read:

My own memoir, A Writer's Life — because I want them to know me as I see myself.

Ondaatje's new novel, Divisadero, is out this month.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Bill Cameron's "Lost Dog"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Bill Cameron's debut mystery, Lost Dog.

About the book, from the author's website:

Peter McKrall is at a crossroads — out of work, fighting a klepto habit, and trying to figure out his next move. Life takes an unexpected turn when a search for his niece’s stuffed dog leads him to something else entirely: a bullet-riddled corpse. Talking to reporters lands Peter on the local news, which turns out to be a dangerous spotlight. And now Darla, the troubled daughter of the victim, is reaching out to him — but can she be trusted? When a second murder takes place and evidence is planted in his trash, the cops dredge up Peter’s painful history. The only ray of sunshine in this harrowing nightmare is Ruby Jane, whose warm smile melts the winter chill.

An unwitting player in a bizarre chain of events, Peter has no idea that the deranged killer is after him — until he takes a shot at Ruby Jane.

- + - + -

Set against the sodden backdrop of Portland, Oregon, Lost Dog tells of the intersection of one man's struggle against and another's embrace of powerful and self-destructive impulses.

Among the praise for Lost Dog:

"Lost Dog is an excellent debut filled with suspense, surprises, and memorable characters — and it captures Portland's quirkiness particularly well. I predict we'll be hearing more from the talented Bill Cameron."
--Alafair Burke, author of Dead Connection

“Lost Dog by Bill Cameron is a beautifully written and masterful work of character-driven crime fiction. One of the most fascinating and compelling main characters I've read in a long time. A bad guy real enough to smell. A plot that fits together like a puzzle.

“I was starving for a personal story. Give me real people. Give me a story with truth. As soon as I started Lost Dog my heart began to beat faster. This was the book I'd been craving.

“Bill Cameron manages to deftly strip away the distance. Not only does he give us a knock-out plot, he gives us real people in real settings. He gives us characters we care about, characters we know and want to know. And like real life, the darkest moments often contain humor. I laughed out loud several times.

“Lost Dog is a heart-stopping, tightly-woven debut by a remarkable new crime-fiction writer. Thank you, Bill Cameron.”
--Anne Frasier, USA Today Bestselling author of Pale Immortal and Hush

“In the chill of Portland at Christmastime, Bill Cameron weaves a story of murder, human frailty and the frightening reality of coincidence. Peter McKrall is in the wrong place at the wrong time, searching for a lost dog. Instead, he finds a dead body, and it begins a chain of events that lead McKrall, weakened by circumstances, into a web of violence that will force him to find his strength. Bill writes a compelling, layered tale with graceful prose, realistic scenery and dead-on dialogue. I really enjoyed Lost Dog. Bill Cameron can add me to his list of fans.”
--Julia Buckley, author of The Dark Backward

Read an excerpt from Lost Dog and visit Cameron's website -- where you can view a video trailer for the novel -- and his blog.

The Page 69 Test: Lost Dog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jerome Groopman's list

Jerome Groopman is a cancer and AIDS researcher, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and writer for The New Yorker. His latest book is How Doctors Think.

He came up with "The List" for last week's The Week magazine.

One title from it:

The Last of the Just by Andre Schwarz-Bart

This epic history of a family dedicated to doing good ends tragically with the Holocaust, and powerfully portrays the great crime of genocide. When I was a young man, this book reinforced my commitment not to ignore injustices against the innocent, regardless of race, creed, or country of origin.

Read more about Groopman's list.

--Marshal Zeringue