Pg. 99: Kyle Mills' "Darkness Falls"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Darkness Falls by Kyle Mills.

About the book, from the author's website:

Erin Neal has been living a secluded life in the Arizona desert since the death of his girlfriend and he isn't happy when an oil company executive appears on his doorstep. A number of important Saudi oil wells have stopped producing and Erin is the world's foremost expert in analyzing and preventing oil field disasters.

As far as he's concerned, though, he left that world behind long ago–not his problem. Unfortunately, Homeland Security sees things differently. Erin quickly finds himself stuck in the Saudi desert studying a new bacteria with a voracious appetite for oil and an uncanny ability to corrode drilling equipment. Worst of all is its ability to spread.

It soon becomes clear that if this contagion isn't stopped, it will infiltrate the planet's petroleum reserves and cut the industrial world off from the energy that provides the heat, food, and transportation necessary for survival. As the scale of the coming disaster continues to grow, Erin realizes that there's something eerily familiar about this bacteria. And that it couldn't possibly have evolved on its own…

Among the praise for Darkness Falls:

"Masterful thriller writer Mills returns to his series hero, former FBI agent Mark Beamon (last seen in 2002's Sphere of Influence), with a pulse-pounding apocalyptic scenario that is terrifying in its plausibility. Maverick environmentalist Erin Neal has become a pariah after his provocative book angered both conservationists and conservatives, and a recluse after the death of his ex-lover, eco-terrorist Jenna Kalin. His solitude is interrupted when Beamon, now the head of energy security for the U.S. government, tracks him down to stop a disaster: the destruction of the world's major oilfields by bioengineered bacteria remarkably similar to ones Neal himself considered designing. The bioweapons have already infected the major Saudi sources of oil, and the impact on the U.S. economy makes the identification of the terrorists and a plan to stem the spread of their microorganisms the national priority. While such plots are a dime a dozen, Mills's meticulous research, pacing and carefully developed characters make this variation particularly convincing."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Erin Neal, acknowledged expert on analyzing and preventing oil-field disasters, has recused himself from a world that rejected his advice on runaway energy consumption. Isolation in the Arizona desert also allows him the dubious privilege of self-pity. But now someone has mutated his controllable oil-eating bacteria, which were used to clean up spills, and infested the world's primary oil fields. Former FBI agent Mark Beamon, a well-paid, do-nothing official in Homeland Security, is directed to recruit Neal for damage assessment and development of an antidote. Neal participates under protest but provides a chilling prognosis: 30 percent of the world's oil is at risk, and the possible development of an airborne strain of the bacteria would send the planet back to subsistence farming. Mills, the standard-bearer for doomsday thrillers, offers another entry that is as disturbing as it is entertaining. His villains are ecologists whose initial idealism has morphed into destructive zealotry, and his heroes are as flawed as they are convincing: Beamon, who's been featured in other Mills thrillers, is a seen-it-all character who hasn't seen anything like this, and Neal is a bitter, lonely, perpetually grieving scientist, a nearly broken man trying to summon one last burst of strength. Mills has done it again: another up-all-night read (with nightmares to follow)."
—Booklist (starred review)

"Mills has a knack for creating plausible save-the-world scenarios…"
—Entertainment Weekly, B+

"Darkness Falls keeps readers’ hearts pounding until the final pages and beyond. Mills writes with knowledge and authority, and while the novel is a work of fiction, it leaves you uneasy about the possibilities of its premise."
—Mystery Scene Magazine

"A fast-paced, heady thriller with a Doomsday scenario straight off today's front pages."
—Andrew Gross, New York Times best-selling author The Blue Zone & The Dark Tide

"Kyle Mills is a master of the page-turner…he will keep you reading well into the night."
—Vince Flynn, author of Memorial Day

Read excerpts from Darkness Falls and learn more about the author and his work at the blog and official website of Kyle Mills.

Mills is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including his award-winning The Second Horseman.

The Page 99 Test: Darkness Falls.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Leighton Gage's "Blood of the Wicked"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Leighton Gage's Blood of the Wicked.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the remote Brazilian town of Cascatas do Pontal, where landless peasants are confronting the owners of vast estates, the the bishop arrives by helicopter to consecrate a new church and is assassinated.

Mario Silva, Chief Inspector for Criminal Matters of the Federal Police of Brazil, is dispatched to the interior to find the killer. The Pope himself has called Brazil’s president; the pressure is on Silva to perform. Assisted by his nephew, Hector Costa, also a federal policeman, Silva must battle the state police and a corrupt judiciary as well as criminals who prey on street kids, the warring factions of the Landless League, the big landowners and the Church itself, in order to solve the initial murder and several brutal killings that follow. Justice is hard to come by. An old priest, a secret liberation theologist, finally metes it out. Here is a Brazil that tourists never encounter.

Among the early praise for the novel:

“Blood of the Wicked manages to pack a huge amount into a spare three hundred pages; power politics, petty violence, sexual scandal, saintly courage, staggering poverty and obscene wealth. A book that makes you care about its large cast of characters, even when you know that they are going to die — frequently horribly. This is a novel as rich and complex as Brazil itself, with villains who make you want to spit, and heroes whose goodness is heartbreaking.”
--Rebecca Pawel, Edgar Award-winning author of Death of a Nationalist

"Leighton Gage achieves both a powerful political thriller and gripping crime fiction in his fascinating debut Blood of the Wicked, set in Brazil. The author packs an immense amount of plot twists based in politics, street violence and corruption that seep into each branch of government. Drawing on several issues plaguing contemporary Brazil, Gage keeps the story moving as he looks at the different strata of society. Violence is brutal and doesn't spare anyone."
--Oline H. Cogdill, Sun-Sentinel

"A gripping tale of murder and vengeance. Gage's inspector is a fascinating character. Highly recommended."
--Library Journal

"Gage's emotionally charged debut…vividly evokes a country of political corruption, startling economic disparity, and relentless crime, both random and premeditated."
--Booklist

"Terrifically written, intelligent, and powerfully evocative. Leighton Gage is a master storyteller, a natural; but more than that, he takes us on a breakneck trip to a real world, with real characters, and real issues. This is definitely a not-to-be-missed debut."
--Brian Haig, Man in the Middle

Leighton Gage has been a copywriter, an advertising creative director, a magazine editor, and a writer/producer/director of documentary films and industrial videos. Read an excerpt from Blood of the Wicked and learn more about the author and his work at Leighton Gage's website and his Crimespace page.

The Page 69 Test: Blood of the Wicked.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Gary J. Bass reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Gary J. Bass, Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Bass works on international security, human rights and war crimes tribunals, but the book he mentions -- read all about it -- is not about any of those subjects.

Bass is the author of Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals as well as articles and book chapters on international justice. His new book, Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention, is due out in August 2008 from Knopf. Before joining the Princeton faculty, he was a reporter for The Economist. He has also written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and other publications.

Writers Read: Gary J. Bass.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Simon Kitson's "The Hunt for Nazi Spies"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France by Simon Kitson.

About the book, from the publisher:

From 1940 to 1942, French secret agents arrested more than two thousand spies working for the Germans and executed several dozen of them—all despite the Vichy government’s declared collaboration with the Third Reich. A previously untold chapter in the history of World War II, this duplicitous activity is the gripping subject of The Hunt for Nazi Spies, a tautly narrated chronicle of the Vichy regime’s attempts to maintain sovereignty while supporting its Nazi occupiers.

Simon Kitson informs this remarkable story with findings from his investigation—the first by any historian—of thousands of Vichy documents seized in turn by the Nazis and the Soviets and returned to France only in the 1990s. His pioneering detective work uncovers a puzzling paradox: a French government that was hunting down left-wing activists and supporters of Charles de Gaulle’s Free French forces was also working to undermine the influence of German spies who were pursuing the same Gaullists and resisters. In light of this apparent contradiction, Kitson does not deny that Vichy France was committed to assisting the Nazi cause, but illuminates the complex agendas that characterized the collaboration and shows how it was possible to be both anti-German and anti-Gaullist.

Combining nuanced conclusions with dramatic accounts of the lives of spies on both sides, The Hunt for Nazi Spies adds an important new dimension to our understanding of the French predicament under German occupation and the shadowy world of World War II espionage.

Among the praise for the book:

“The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France is history, not a novel, and Mr. Kitson is a historian's historian: a patient, meticulous master of the archives, a disciplined analyst, a servant of the evidence. His study of the French counterintelligence service's pursuit of German spies during the collaboration is not calculated to appeal to a mass market. Yet the imaginative reader will find the germ here of at least a dozen characters to populate a sensational spy novel.”
--Claire Berlinski, New York Sun

“Simon Kitson has drawn from intensive study of French archives the first full picture of Vichy's counterintelligence activities. We can now see more clearly how Vichy France tried (ultimately unsuccessfully) to collaborate with Nazi Germany as a sovereign and neutral state, master of its own territory and administration.”
—Robert O. Paxton, author of Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order

“The pungent details give Kitson’s book a particular force: the incidents of head-shearing, the intimations of torture, the leakages back to the German authorities of the places where the spies were held, the contempt of the Vichy secret services for British agents.... All these elements make an English edition of the book a necessity.”
—Rod Kedward, Times Literary Supplement, on the French edition

“Zooms in . . . on the vexed questions of spying and counterespionage under Vichy, affording an extended example of the kind of detailed research that must underpin any reinterpretation of the années noires.”
—Richard Parish, Times Higher Education Supplement, on the French edition

“Previous historians of Vichy espionage have had to rely largely on the (often-self serving) memoirs of French secret agents. Kitson is the first person to have tested these accounts against the historical record deriving from the rich body of archives recently repatriated to France from the former Soviet Union. The result of that important original research, The Hunt for Nazi Spies is a distinguished and skillfully written work."
—Julian Jackson, author of France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944

Read an excerpt from The Hunt for Nazi Spies and learn more about the book at the University of Chicago Press website.

Simon Kitson is Senior Lecturer in the French Studies department at Birmingham University and co-director of the Centre for Modern European History. Learn more about Kitson's research interests and other publications at his faculty webpage.

The Page 99 Test: The Hunt for Nazi Spies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books by and about Simone de Beauvoir

Lisa Appignanesi is a writer, novelist and president of English PEN. Her new book, Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 comes out this spring in the US. Among her other books is the acclaimed family memoir, Losing the Dead. Her Simone de Beauvoir was honored with a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.

She named her "top 10 books by and about Simone de Beauvoir" for the Guardian.

Her prefatory remarks, followed by one title on the list:

"I think I must have been around 18 when I first dipped into the pages of The Second Sex and was mesmerised by Simone de Beauvoir's terrifyingly lucid account of how one is not so much born, but rather becomes, a woman. Her judicious presence and bold intelligence have been with me ever since, not only in her many books. In a sense the very arc of her life gave us all permission: we could think for ourselves, be actors in the public sphere, and write across the genres - fiction, non-fiction and memoir...."

4. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
This first volume of de Beauvoir's autobiography is a vivid account of growing up female within the confines of a respectable bourgeois family in the early years of the 20th century. Simone's rebellion against a constricting faith and family, the psychological acumen de Beauvoir brings to her portrait of a girl who loves life and books and eventually men, makes this a classic in the genre.

Read more about Lisa Appignanesi's top 10 books by and about Simone de Beauvoir.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jami Attenberg's "The Kept Man"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Jami Attenberg's The Kept Man.

About the book, from the author's website:

There was the ambulance, and a lot of noise, and me and Martin in the hospital, paint on his face, paint on my knees, the two of us the weirdest people in the room, as usual, only this time I didn't have anyone to talk to but myself.

Six years ago, Jarvis Miller's husband, an artist whose career was poised to take off, fell into a coma. And ever since, she's been waiting. She has waited at his bedside, leaning against the nursing home's yellow walls and then waited a day for her depression to subside after every visit. She has waited for doctors and prescriptions, all the newest and best; for cars to take her home; for checks to sign; and most of all she has waited for her husband to wake up. But after six years of dwindling hope, living as a half-widow, and selling off pieces of her husband's artwork to pay for the machines that keep him alive, Jarvis has come to admit that she's waiting for her husband to die.

Then one spring day when her washing machine breaks down, Jarvis meets the members of the Kept Man Club: three handsome, interesting men, all married to readwinner wives, who meet once a week at a local laundromat. Their companionship opens her eyes to the possibilities of family, warmth, and friendship she's been missing, and they become her first new friends in six years. At the same time, her husband's best friend and his art dealer pressure Jarvis to gather the remainder of his work for a retrospective - a proposition that produces mixed feelings, since it's an honor usually reserved for the already dead. Sorting through a hidden box of photographs, she uncovers evidence of a shocking betrayal that calls into question her idealized vision of the past.

Among the early praise for The Kept Man:

"Short story writer Attenberg (Instant Love) successfully demonstrates her talent and experience in her debut novel.... An engaging and innovative first novel for all fiction collections."
--Library Journal (starred review)

"Written in a sparse style that puts Attenberg's background as a journalist to strong use, this funny, perceptive debut earns its hopeful if uncertain ending, giving wisdom to a sentiment as saccharine as one character's belief 'that we are the sum of all of the loves before us until we reach our one great love.'"
--Publishers Weekly

"...Written in relaxed yet fresh prose, Attenberg's debut is unabashedly emotional, refreshingly devoid of New York City cynicism and tenderly funny."
--People Magazine

"The book is rich in sensual details. Attenberg creates a physical world that's easy to enter, graced with money and full of handsome people, lovely clothes and idle time. Quick, intense sex scenes work within the weave of the larger plot. Against this landscape of privilege and indulgence, Attenberg draws a complicated, pensive emotional landscape best lived vicariously, through her lens of dreamy language."
--The Oregonian

"Her prose is vivid, specific, thoroughly considered, and easy to read.... Ms. Attenberg, via Jarvis, has a wise, wounded, and empathetic voice, and, more important, she is an able geographer of emotional landscapes."
--New York Sun

"Attenberg has a wonderful eye for detail: Her vivid descriptions of Williamsburg -- almost a character in itself -- are truly engaging. For all of her faults, and there are plenty, Jarvis is likable, with a surprising wit that tempers her bleak situation."
--Time Out NY

"She writes of longing and mourning with extraordinary heart. She muses on the Big Questions - euthanasia, faith, mortality - while taking time out to incorporate savagely funny lines: 'Judith was a cokehead, as well as a diabetic, a brilliant combination of death wish and death sentence.' A likable novel marked by a profundity of feeling."
--Kirkus

Read an excerpt from The Kept Man and learn more about the author and her work at Jami Attenberg's website and her blog.

Watch the two short films inspired by The Kept Man: Man and No Use Crying.

Jami Attenberg is the author of the story collection Instant Love. She has written for Jane, Salon, Nylon, Print, the San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly, and Time Out New York, and her fiction has appeared in Nerve, Pindeldyboz, Spork, and Bullfight Review.

The Page 69 Test: The Kept Man.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kate Pepper's "One Cold Night," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Kate Pepper's One Cold Night.

Pepper's entry opens:

Whenever I visualize Dave Strauss, the detective whose quest to find his kidnapped teenage sister-in-law and whose love for his wife are at the heart of my thriller One Cold Night, I see Viggo Mortensen: quiet, intense, brooding, intelligent, and sexy. Dave is a man whose greatest attributes include his keen investigative instincts, the self-doubt inspired by a seasoned past, and his ability to deeply love and cherish his wife, Susan. I can see Mortensen embodying this character with conviction and soul.

Susan is played by... [read on]

Read excerpts and learn more about the author and her work at Kate Pepper's website and her blog.

Hear Kate Pepper talk about One Cold Night at Written Voices.com.

The Page 69 Test: Here She Lies.

My Book, The Movie: One Cold Night.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michelle Wildgen’s "You’re Not You"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Michelle Wildgen’s You’re Not You.

About the book, from the author's website:

College student Bec is self-conscious of her aimless life; she has fallen into an affair with a married professor and a major she has no interest in. In a half-hearted effort to redeem herself, she answers an ad for a caregiver and finds herself employed by Kate, a wealthy, happily married woman with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Their relationship develops into a surprising intimacy, and as she observes the implacable changes in Kate her own life takes shape in ways she didn't anticipate. Vibrant and sensuous, this is a fiercely unsentimental yet poignant novel.

Among the praise for You’re Not You:

“Wildgen writes with a fresh, appealing honesty and has done a marvelous job of capturing that youthful moment in our lives when we are like sponges ready to soak up someone else’s character, taste and charm, borrowed elements from which we hope to concoct an authentic, individual self.”
—Francine Prose, People Magazine, Critic’s Choice, 4 stars

“...You’re Not You, by the astonishingly gifted debut novelist Michelle Wildgen, is a complex and satisfying dish: a story of intimate strangers and their impact on each other’s lives. What makes this novel so enticing is the smartly self-mocking young narrator, Bec, and the lovely, unlucky Kate.”
—Cathleen Medwick, O Magazine

“Wildgen eschews the cliché, and instead provides us with a psychologically acute and complex tale of a young woman who begins to learns, under emotionally difficult circumstances, who she is and what she wants to be. This is one of those first novels that makes you want to reach out to the writer and say, hurry up and write: I want to read your second novel.”
—Nancy Pearl, Seattle NPR

Read an excerpt from You're Not You, and learn more about the author and her writing at Michelle Wildgen’s website.

Wildgen is senior editor of Tin House Magazine, an editor with Tin House Books, and the editor of the anthology Food & Booze: A Tin House Literary Feast. Her fiction, personal essays, and food writing have also appeared in The New York Times, and in anthologies such as Best New American Voices 2004, Best Food Writing 2004, Death by Pad Thai and Other Unforgettable Meals, and journals including StoryQuarterly, TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Small Spiral Notebook, Gulf Coast, Salt Hill and elsewhere.

The Page 99 Test: You’re Not You.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Thomas Dixon reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Thomas Dixon, Lecturer in History at Queen Mary, University of London, and the author of the forthcoming The Invention of Altruism: Making Moral Meanings in Victorian Britain and Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction.

He has pursued three related strands of research: the history of theories of passions and emotions; the history of debates about ‘altruism’, especially in Victorian Britain; and, more generally, the history of relationships between science and religion. Two of his essay-reviews for the Times Literary Supplement are available online: one is on the philosophy of emotion, the other on science and religion.

Visit Thomas Dixon's faculty webpage to learn more about his other publications and research interests.

One paragraph from his entry:

Two brilliant books I received as Christmas gifts are at the top of my current pile of books – Roy Porter’s London: A Social History and Vic Gatrell’s City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London. I love Gillray’s caricatures and political cartoons, and Gatrell’s book is lavishly illustrated with literally hundreds of satirical prints by Gillray, Rowlandson, and others. [read on]

Writers Read: Thomas Dixon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Linda L. Richards' "Death Was the Other Woman"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Linda L. Richards' Death Was the Other Woman.

About the book, from the publisher's website:

As the lawlessness of Prohibition pushes against the desperation of the Depression, there are two ways to make a living in Los Angeles: join the criminals or collar them. Kitty Pangborn has chosen the crime-fighters, becoming secretary to Dexter J. Theroux, one of the hard-drinking, tough-talking PIs who pepper the city's stew. But after Dex takes an assignment from Rita Heppelwaite, the mistress of Harrison Dempsey, one of L.A.'s shadiest -- and richest -- businessmen, Kitty isn't so sure what side of the law she's on.

Rita suspects Dempsey has been stepping out and asks Dex to tail him. It's an easy enough task, but Dex's morning stroll with Johnnie Walker would make it tough for him to trail his own shadow. Kitty insists she go along for the ride, keeping her boss -- and hopefully her salary -- safe. However, she's about to realize that there's something far more unpleasant than a three-timing husband at the end of this trail, and that there's more at risk than her paycheck.

Richly satisfying and stylishly gritty, Death Was the Other Woman gives a brand-new twist to the hard-boiled style, revealing that while veteran PIs like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe spent their time slugging scotch and wooing women, it may well have been the Girl Fridays of the world who really cracked the cases.

Among the praise for Death Was the Other Woman:

“You’re about to meet a new great dame of crime fiction in Death Was the Other Woman. Linda L. Richards does a stunning job in creating a character with a voice and eye right out of a 1930s L.A. hard-boiled classic: guns and gams, booze and bodies, peepers and perps. Move over, Sam Spade: Kitty Pangborn is on the case.”
--Linda Fairstein, author of Death Dance

“Richards takes a break from her Madeline Carter series (Mad Money, etc.) with this winning hard-boiled 1931 whodunit with a twist: the main sleuth is not world-weary L.A. PI Dex Theroux, but his loyal secretary and assistant, Kitty Pangborn. Theroux, who drinks far too much to drown his memories of WWI, gets a rare paying assignment when beautiful, wealthy Rita Heppelwaite hires him to tail her married boyfriend, Harrison Dempsey. Kitty tags along, only to find their quarry's corpse, a development that Theroux wants to keep secret. After her conscience prompts her to tip off the police to the body, Kitty finds herself involved even deeper when word reaches her that Dempsey is alive and well. Well-developed lead characters, in particular the insightful Kitty ... shows potential as a series detective...”
--Publishers Weekly

“Using a female narrator for a Depression-era noir tale seems a calculated strategy, but Richards makes it work naturally. Kitty, whose life of privilege disappeared when her father killed himself after the 1929 stock market crash, brings a peculiarly ironic point of view, filtering the tough guys, broads, gats, and gunsels through a patrician context that makes all the hard-boiled posturing seem as silly as high-society tomfoolery. Honoring the noir tradition while turning it on its head, Richards’ richly detailed period portrays a world in which lifestyles, whether high or low, become an elaborate defense against a harsh environment in which there is only one final act and the trick is to determine the time the curtain falls. Expect to hear more from Kitty Pangborn.”
--Booklist

“Sharp, vibrant and crackling. One chapter in to Linda L. Richards’ sparkling 1930s Los Angeles mystery, Death Was the Other Woman, and we’d follow her smart, resourceful, spirited heroine, Kitty Pangborn, down any dark alley, any mean street.”
--Megan Abbott, author of The Song is You and Queenpin

“With crackling dialogue and bang-on authenticity, Death Was the Other Woman engrossed me in a terrific, compelling mystery. With memorable characters and settings, Richards manages to dig beneath the surface of Prohibition-era Los Angeles and give a sense of its historical context. A great read!”
--Dan Kalla, internationally bestselling author of Pandemic and Blood Lies

“Death Was the Other Woman propelled me straight into depression-era Los Angeles, a really stunning and exciting achievement. And the murder kept me guessing right to the page turning end. On top of that, the lively characters have walked off the page and now pursue me long after I’ve closed the book. A really stellar crime caper, a delight.”
--Lousie Penny, author of Still Life

“Reading Death Was the Other Woman was like stumbling across a long-lost and wonderful Orson Welles flick. It’s a pitch-perfect story of Depression-era LA that’s so damn good I recommend calling in sick to work and making a plate of sandwiches before you start reading, because you won't want to put it down for anything -- including such petty concerns as food, drink, sleep, and oncoming Packards and locomotives.”
--Cornelia Read, author of A Field of Darkness

Death Was the Other Woman “is a great period piece with action aplenty and nostalgia-evoking characters.”
--Library Journal

Visit the official Death Was the Other Woman website.

Linda L. Richards is the editor and co-founder of January Magazine and a regular contributor to The Rap Sheet. Her books include three novels in the Madeline Carter series.

The Page 69 Test: Death Was the Other Woman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Most important books: Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini began writing his first novel, The Kite Runner, in March of 2001. In 2003, The Kite Runner was published and has since become an international bestseller, published in 38 countries.

His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns was published in May of 2007.

He recently told Newsweek about his five most important books. And answered two related questions:

A Classic You Revisited With Disappointment:

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. When I was a teen, I thought Holden Caulfield was brilliant. Now I find his self-absorption hard to forgive.

A Book You Hope Parents Would Read To Their Kids:

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. The ultimate tale of selfless, undying love.

Read more about Khaled Hosseini's most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Zoë Sharp's "Second Shot"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Zoë Sharp's Second Shot.

About the book, from the author's website:

'Take it from me, getting yourself shot hurts like hell.'

When the latest assignment of ex-Special Forces soldier turned bodyguard, Charlie Fox, ends in a bloody shoot-out in a frozen forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, she's left fighting for her life, with her client dead.

Simone had just become a lottery millionairess but she never lived long enough to enjoy her newfound riches. Charlie was supposed to be keeping Simone's troublesome ex-boyfriend at bay and accompanying her on a trip to New England to track down the father Simone had never really known. A relatively low-risk job.

But Simone's former SAS father has secrets in his past that are about to come back and haunt him, and the arrival of his long-lost daughter may be the catalyst that blows his whole world apart. Was the prospect of getting hold of Simone's money tempting enough to make him engineer her death? And what happens now to Simone's baby daughter, Ella?

With Simone gone, Ella's safety becomes Charlie's main concern. She's determined, despite her injuries, not to let anything happen to the child. But the closer Charlie gets to the truth, the bigger threat she becomes. Only, this time she's in no fit state to protect anyone, least of all herself....

Among the praise for Second Shot:

"Charlie Fox ... the most complex, endearing and believable protagonist to grace the pages of a thriller in years."
--Paul Goat Allen, Chicago Tribune

"James Bond, watch your back. There's a tough new breed of British muscle on the block, and her name is Fox, Charlie Fox.... [C]rackles with suspense ... crisp prose ... plenty of plot twists, and a heroine who adds new meaning to the term femme fatale."
--Allison Block, Booklist (starred review)

"Scarily good. Today's best action heroine is back with a bang. Cross your fingers and toes that she survives for future adventures − you definitely want her to."
--Lee Child

"... easily, the best installment of the series."
--Sarah Weinman, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

"Sharp expertly builds the suspense ... should win her many new American fans."
--Publishers Weekly

"Charlie Fox is fast becoming the must-read heroine of mystery ... Superb."
--Ken Bruen

Read an excerpt from Second Shot and learn more about the author and her books at Zoë Sharp's website, her blog, and Murderati.

Zoë Sharp's professional writing career began in 2001 with Killer Instinct, the first Charlie Fox book. This novel was followed by Riot Act (2002), Hard Knocks (2003), and First Drop (UK 2004; US, 2005), which earned a nomination for a Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel. The fifth Charlie Fox book is Road Kill (2005), and the latest is Second Shot. Another Charlie Fox book, Third Strike, will be out in summer 2008.

Read Ali Karim's 2007 interview with Zoë Sharp at The Rap Sheet.

The Page 99 Test: Second Shot.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Kevin Wignall's "Who is Conrad Hirst?"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Kevin Wignall's Who is Conrad Hirst?.

About the book, from the publisher:

Who is Conrad Hirst? Knowing the answer could get you killed. Not knowing could get him killed.

Conrad Hirst is a hired killer working for a German crime boss. Disturbed by the death of his girlfriend ten years earlier and still bearing the scars of post-traumatic stress after serving as a mercenary, he's valued precisely because of how broken he is, by how coldly he kills, by the solitary existence he leads.

But something has happened on Conrad's most recent job that's shattered his equilibrium and left him determined to quit. Fortunately for him, there's a simple way to leave the business and begin life anew: Only four people know who he is and what he's done -- kill those four people, and Conrad is a free man.

A simple plan, but life is never that simple, and as Conrad's scheme unravels, he quickly realizes he isn't the only one doing the killing. With the certainties of his life crumbling around him, he's no longer sure whom he's been working for, or why, or what they want of him now. In fact, he can't even answer the ever-looming and ominous question: Who is Conrad Hirst?

Fast-paced, dark, and disturbing, Kevin Wignall's newest page-turner is the story of a broken young man seeking retribution against those who have used him for their own gain, and of the devastating secret that fuels his anger. It is a story of identity and loss, of missed opportunities and the cruelty of fate.

Among the praise for the novel:

"A thinking person's thriller that'll keep you up all night, flipping pages with sweaty fingers! Wignall's Who Is Conrad Hirst? races from start to finish, setting new standards for crime fiction. A brilliant premise, perfectly executed."
--Jeffery Deaver, author of The Sleeping Doll and The Bone Collector

"Who Is Conrad Hirst? is a classic espionage novel in the tradition of Ambler, Deighton, and early Le Carré. It reminds me of everything that first thrilled me about this genre."
--Joseph Finder, author of Power Play and Killer Instinct

"Brilliant and mesmerizing, Who Is Conrad Hirst? explores the psychology of the ruthless killer with breakneck plotting, beautiful writing, and an ending that will leave you devastated."
--Olen Steinhauer, author of Liberation Movements and 36 Yalta Boulevard

"Like his previous books, this is a meditation on the directness of one man killing another, but Conrad Hirst goes yet further with ruminations on identity, the loss of a loved one and the emotional shattering that comes with having no idea who you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to stand for. Most writers would need double the word count to get so much across, but once again, Wignall packs more punch in as few words possible."
--Sarah Weinman

"A haunting story that flows at a hypnotic pace to a heart-wrenching conclusion, Who is Conrad Hirst? is one of the most compelling books of the year. Wignall is an expert storyteller, an absolute must-read for fans of hardboiled crime fiction."
--Sandra Ruttan, Spinetingler Magazine

"[A] smart and suspenseful read, and one of the season’s best books."
--David Montgomery, Chicago Sun-Times

"Wignall uses spare prose and a crisp pace to create this masterful psychological tale. The ending will surprise suspense genre fans and leave them rooting for the complex, tenacious Conrad Hirst to succeed in his quest to go straight."
--Ed Lynskey

"Wignall (For the Dogs) successfully channels Robert Ludlum in this lean, muscular thriller with more than a few parallels to Ludlum's Jason Bourne series.... Wignall's ability to blend meaningful characterizations with suspenseful action shows a talent that many other genre writers would envy."
--Publishers Weekly

"Wignall (For the Dogs, 2004) writes eloquently about criminals with a conscience, weaving together Conrad's precarious pursuit of "retirement" with his poignant (and, at times, maudlin) letters to a dead lover. Clipped prose drives this lean tale about a man less likely to go out with a whimper than a bang. "He'd experienced enough to know that survival wasn't an end in itself, that it was better to die trying to live than not live at all."
--Booklist

Read an excerpt from Who is Conrad Hirst? and learn more about the novel at the Simon & Schuster website.

Kevin Wignall's other works include For the Dogs, People Die, and Among the Dead, and a number of acclaimed short stories.

See Wignall's website to learn about his books and stories, and check out his posts at the group blog Contemporary Nomad.

My Book, The Movie: People Die.

The Page 69 Test: Who is Conrad Hirst?.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Alex de Waal reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Alex de Waal, researcher, writer and activist on African issues.

He is a fellow of the Global Equity Initiative, Harvard; director of the Social Science Research Council program on AIDS and social transformation; and a director of Justice Africa in London.

One book included in his entry:

I am ... reading the third part of an ethnographic trilogy on the Uduk people of southern Blue Nile, a frontier area of northern Sudan that abuts both southern Sudan and Ethiopia. This is Wendy James’s War and Survival in Sudan’s Frontierlands: Voices from the Blue Nile (Oxford 2007)..... War and Survival is a treasure trove for those wanting to understand what wars in Sudan (such as in Darfur) really mean. One of the themes that emerges strongly is that the Uduk people tend not to assess an individual by which side he took in the war, but by his personal behavior — decency or cruelty when he had the power of life or death over people in his charge. [read on]

De Waal is a fellow of the Global Equity Initiative, Harvard; director of the Social Science Research Council program on AIDS and social transformation; and a director of Justice Africa in London.

His books include: Famine that Kills: Darfur, Sudan, 1984-5 (Oxford University Press, 1989), and Facing Genocide: The Nuba of Sudan (African Rights, 1995). He is the editor and lead author of Islam and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa (Indiana, 2004), and most recently author, with Julie Flint, of Darfur: A Short History of a Long War, 2d ed (Zed, 2008) and AIDS and Power: Why There is No Political Crisis Yet (Zed, 2006). De Waal earned his doctorate in social anthropology from Oxford University.

Writers Read: Alex de Waal.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best works that explore marriage

Edward Mendelson, a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University and author of books including Early Auden and The Things That Matter: What Seven Classic Novels Have to Say About the Stages of Life, named a five best list of "works [that] explore marriage with uncommon clarity" for Opinion Journal.

One title on his list:

The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope (1876).

The fifth and best of Anthony Trollope's six "Palliser" novels is also his subtlest portrait of a marriage. Plantagenet Palliser and his wife, Lady Glencora, who have recently become the Duke and Duchess of Omnium, never resolve the conflict between her unscrupulous ambition and his belief that their marriage so thoroughly unites them that her actions are also his own, even if he disapproves of them. Without making any final judgments, Trollope explores the ways in which a marriage is not just a relation between two persons but also a relation between the married couple and the world around them.

Read more about Mendelson's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: "The Fattening of America"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Eric Finkelstein and Laurie Zuckerman's The Fattening of America: How The Economy Makes Us Fat, If It Matters, and What To Do About It.

About the book, from the publisher:

Eric Finkelstein is a renowned health economist who has spent much of his career studying the economics of obesity. Now, with the help of coauthor Laurie Zuckerman, he skillfully reveals the economic drivers behind America's growing obesity epidemic, its impact on society, and what can be done to get the epidemic under control. The Fattening of America brings a complex topic to a broad general audience with engaging examples that are relatable to economists and non-economists alike. Declining food costs and sedentary lifestyles contribute to rising obesity rates, damaging America's economy. It's making our businesses less competitive, pushing good jobs overseas, hurting our military readiness, increasing our taxes, and bankrupting the Medicare and Medicaid programs. In addition, the obesity epidemic has created a tremendous demand for all sorts of new products and services, creating a flourishing new market that the authors have termed "The ObesEconomy." The Fattening of America outlines the issues we must address in order to confront obesity and provides sensible strategies for reducing this burden. It explains how successful obesity prevention strategies, whether driven by business or government, can create an economy that helps America slim down and save money.

Among the advance praise for the book:

"Eric Finkelstein and Laurie Zuckerman show that our entire society profits from making people fat and then either keeping them fat or making them thin again. When you understand how these powerful forces work, you can do a better job of resisting them — and staying healthy."
--Jack Challem, bestselling author of The Food-Mood Solution and Stop Prediabetes Now

"Everyone who eats food in America must read this book. It is a comprehensive guide to how we've become the fattest nation on the planet and how the food industry, in cahoots with the government, makes us one of the least healthy nations."
--Fred Pescatore, MD, MPH, CCN, author of The Hamptons Diet

"The authors have done an excellent job talking to mainstream America about obesity. It brings together all of the latest research and packages it in a way that is engaging for the average person. I very much enjoyed the book and would recommend it for anyone interested in obesity. Well done."
--James O. Hill, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and author of The Step Diet: Count Steps, Not Calories to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever

"The Fattening of America is an important book for everyone interested in gaining a better understanding of the underlying causes behind the obesity epidemic and options for addressing it."
--Barry Popkin, Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition at the University of North Carolina

Learn more about The Fattening of America at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Fattening of America.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is John O'Hurley reading?

Family Feud host John O'Hurley, best known for his role as J. Peterman on Seinfeld, is the author of Before Your Dog Can Eat Your Homework, First You Have to Do It: Life Lessons from a Wise Old Dog to a Young Boy. He talked to the Christian Science Monitor about his recent television viewing and what he's been listening to.

And what he's been reading:

I am reading Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road. I chose it because I am a father and I have new dealings with being a parent. I never realized the capacity to love until the birth of my child. McCarthy writes about some things that I touch on in my own book, like the fact that I would lay my own life down for my child. He is trying to show the preciousness of life. I am also reading Confessions of a Country Architect by Don Metz, the architect of a new house I am building on a couple hundred acres that I just bought in Vermont. I bought [the book] because I wanted to find out a little bit about him.

Read more about O'Hurley's taste in entertainment.

Read my 2006 review of The Road.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Zachary Lazar's "Sway"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Zachary Lazar's Sway.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Three dramatic and emblematic stories intertwine in Zachary Lazar's extraordinary new novel, Sway -- the early days of the Rolling Stones, including the romantic triangle of Brian Jones, Anita Pallenberg, and Keith Richards; the life of avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger; and the community of Charles Manson and his followers.

Lazar illuminates an hour in American history when rapture found its roots in idolatrous figures and led to unprovoked and inexplicable violence. Connecting all the stories in this novel is Bobby Beausoleil, a beautiful California boy who appeared in an Anger film and eventually joined the Manson 'family.' With great artistry, Lazar weaves scenes from these real lives together into a true but heightened reality, making superstars human, giving demons reality, and restoring mythic events to the scale of daily life.

Among the early praise for Sway:

"As Mick Jagger sang in the 1970 song 'Sway,' 'It's just that demon life has got me in its sway.' In Lazar's second novel, he uses a number of real 'demon lives' from the '60s — the Stones and their entourage; Kenneth Anger, the filmmaker who shot Scorpio Rising; and Bobby Beausoleil, a musician and Manson family associate — to channel the era's dread and exhilaration. Lazar shows the decade's descent as the culture of youth (represented most clearly by the Rolling Stones as icons of swinging London) responds to assassinations, the war in Vietnam, the repression in Czechoslovakia and the shedding of navet about drugs. Lazar sketches out his narrative through discrete episodes: Bobby's first criminal job with Manson; Anger's filming of Scorpio Rising; the breakup of Anita Pallenberg and Brian Jones; and a series of Anger's failed film projects. Anger serves as the narrative's lynchpin, and Lazar could have easily cast him as a tawdry caricature, but to his credit, Lazar understands that, in the '60s, the marginal was central, and he brilliantly highlights the fragility of an era when 'everyone under thirty has decided that they're an exception — a musician, a runaway, an artist, a star.'"
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Learn more about Sway at the publisher's website.

Read Lazar's playlist matching songs to the chapters in Sway.

Zachary Lazar's first novel is Aaron, Approximately. He graduated from Brown University, has been a Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Works Center, and received the Iowa Writers Workshops James Michener/Copernicus Society Prize.

The Page 69 Test: Sway.

--Marshal Zeringue

Interview: Christopher Lane

New at Author Interviews: Christopher Lane, Herman and Beulah Pearce Miller Research Professor at Northwestern University and author, most recently, of Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness.

Lane generously responded to a few questions about his new book.

Cary Federman, author of The Body and the State: Habeas Corpus and American Jurisprudence and a professor in the Department of Justice Studies at Montclair State University, researched and developed the questions.

One exchange from the interview:

Federman: Literature and madness have been joined since Plato. But your book, Shyness, is not an investigation into the works of Rabelais, de Sade, or Flaubert, authors of classic works of literature that explore madness's various meanings. Rather, you discuss Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Will Self's Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe, both of which characterize mental illness as a problem to be solved by pharmaceutical companies. Is chemical dependency the new madness?

Lane: It’s true that I focus more on anxiety than madness in the book — and that’s partly because madness has received quite a lot of airtime, especially in studies on nineteenth-century psychiatry. By contrast, anxiety is a timely, engaging subject that neuropsychiatrists treat as if it’s completely explainable because they view it as arising almost exclusively from a chemical imbalance in the brain. Actually, anxiety is a complex phenomenon that varies greatly from one culture to the next, and certainly one age to the next. It also straddles psychology, biology, and society — the mind, brain, and environment, if you will — so it’s a mistake to reduce it to one of these areas, such as the brain, and to neglect other factors, such as the mind.

I wanted to focus on contemporary literature, in particular, because some of it and quite a lot of films not only engage with the complexities of our minds but also question the widespread changes in neuropsychiatry and ask if they’re sound, appropriate, and necessary. I view Jonathan Franzen, Will Self, Alan Lightman’s novel The Diagnosis, and Zach Braff’s film Garden State as very much part of a cultural backlash against psychiatry and, indeed, the overdiagnosis and overmedication of ourselves and our children. So I wouldn’t exactly say that these writers characterize mental illness as a problem to be solved by pharmaceutical companies. It’s more that they ask whether so much medication is necessary in our culture, what its side effects are, and what the overall emphasis on meds is doing to us in the long-term. [read on]

Read an excerpt from Shyness and learn more about the book at the Yale University Press website.

Visit Christopher Lane's website.

Author Interviews: Christopher Lane.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ray Banks' Saturday's Child

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Saturday's Child by Ray Banks.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Cal Innes is fresh out of prison and ducking a past muddied with ties to local gang lord "Uncle" Morris Tiernan. But when Tiernan finds out Innes is working as an unlicensed PI and calls in a favor Innes doesn’t owe, Innes is thrust into a cat-and-mouse game with Tiernan’s psychotic son, Mo. Ordered to track down a rogue casino dealer who’s absconded with a hefty chunk of cash, Innes finds that the case points north to Newcastle. With Tiernan’s son on his tail and a Manchester cop determined to put Innes back in jail, Saturday’s child has to work hard to keep living.

Among the praise for Saturday's Child:

“This is a two-fisted read, full of blood, beatings, and hangovers. But Banks shows a deft touch with humor — Mo’s attempts to prove himself a hard man provoke wincing laughter — and Cal’s ongoing fight with fear makes him our new favorite tour guide through Britain’s track-suited ‘chav’ or ’scally’ culture.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“Banks (The Big Blind, 2004) has an ear for the vernacular as sharp as, but a shade or two bluer than, that of George V. Higgins. Let the squeamish stick with Tony Soprano; this is real tough stuff.”
—Kirkus

“Tough and assured ... Banks is updating the noir novel with an utterly original sensibility.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Bleakly, desperately funny, Ray Banks offers us a glimpse of what Samuel Beckett might have read like had he turned his hand to crime fiction.”
—Crime Always Pays (Declan Burke)

“Ray Banks’s writing is a dark delight, and Saturday’s Child is like blunt surgery from a cricket bat. Fast, hard, packed with madcap violence and twisted humor, it’s a bone-jarring ride through England’s bleak underbelly.”
—Patrick Quinlan, author of Smoked

“Ray Banks mixes sharp humor with crackling dialogue in a wild ride across the pond. Saturday’s Child is a page turner, start to finish.”
—Charlie Stella, author of Mafiya and Cheapskates

“Fast, funny, and hard as nails, Saturday’s Child proves to America what the UK already knows: There’s a heart in the darkness of today’s finest crime fiction, and Ray Banks will take you there. Buckle up.”
—Sean Doolittle, Barry award snatcher for The Cleanup

“Saturday’s Child has to be one of the finest PI novels of the year. With crisp, seamless prose and laugh-out-loud observations, Banks gives us a whole new spin on the classic detective novel. Ray Banks and his hard-edged, cynical PI Cal Innes are true originals. Read Saturday’s Child and you’ll realize that the future of U.K. detective fiction is Ray Banks.”
—Jason Starr, author of The Follower

“A savage hardboiled spanking, Saturday’s Child will leave you begging for more. Banks is a talented storyteller and a gifted wordsmith. He’s also demented in the best possible way. Keep sending the creamy goodness across the pond, Mr Banks. We want more!”
—Victor Gischler, author of Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

“Saturday’s Child is a knock-out, written with the kind of energy and passion that far too few writers can muster. Fresh and fierce, it raises the bar for hardboiled fiction on both sides of the Atlantic.”
—New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman, author of What The Dead Know

“Saturday’s Child is fascinating, fresh and darkly funny. It will be an exotic entertainment for American readers of hard-boiled detective fiction.”
—Thomas Perry, author of Nightlife

“Banks wields language with a knifefighter’s precision, with much the same result. From the first words to the last, this book flashes brilliantly.”
—Don Winslow, The Power Of The Dog and The Winter of Frankie Machine

“Saturday’s Child has the feel of a writer grabbing the material with both hands and keeping a tight grip on it from first page to last… For me, it was like three parts Mike Leigh, one part Sin City, with maybe a dash of Dead Man’s Shoes thrown in too.”
—Steve Mosby, 50/50 Killer

Ray Banks is also the author of The Big Blind (his debut) and Donkey Punch.

Visit Banks at his website and at Crimespace and MySpace.

The Page 69 Test: The Big Blind.

My Book, The Movie: The Big Blind.

The Page 99 Test: Saturday's Child.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bill Cameron's "Lost Dog," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Bill Cameron's Lost Dog.

The author's entry opens:

Way back when I first started writing Lost Dog, I was already visualizing the movie version. As each new character materialized on the page, the casting director in my mind was on the job. The brooding, yet smart-assed form of John Cusack would be Peter. Dennis Farina as crusty Skin Kadash. Gillian Anderson as perky Ruby Jane (yes, I confess to a deep and abiding Scully crush). Jake was a tricky one, and while I never settled on a specific choice, any of the boy toys from Beverly Hills 90210 had the inside track.

A few of these actors have grown too old for the roles, so read on to see which fresh faces Cameron has in mind to now play the characters.

Read an excerpt from Lost Dog and visit Bill Cameron's website where you can view a video trailer for the novel and learn more about his writing.

The Page 69 Test: Lost Dog.

My Book, The Movie: Lost Dog.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Mark Vernon reading?

The latest contributor to Writers Read: Mark Vernon, author of The Philosophy of Friendship, After Atheism: Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life, and other books and articles.

The opening paragraph from his entry:

I usually have a few books on the go at one time - some read for fun, some very thoroughly, some more lightly. At the moment, my 'for fun' book is Moondust by Andrew Smith, about the author's attempts to track down and engage the nine remaining astronauts who walked on the moon. All have fascinating if not strange stories to tell. The book is also great for situating Apollo in its cultural period. And it was 30 years ago that someone last walked on the moon! [read on]

Mark Vernon is a writer, broadcaster and journalist. He began his professional life as a priest in the Church of England. He is the author of What Not To Say: Finding the Right Words at Difficult Moments, Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life, The Philosophy of Friendship, and Business: the Key Concepts. He also writes regularly for the Guardian, The Philosophers' Magazine, TLS, Financial Times and New Statesman, alongside a range of business titles, including Management Today. He also broadcasts, notably on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time.

Vernon's 42: Deep Thought on Life is scheduled for release in March 2008. His Teach Yourself Humanism is due out in summer, and he is working on Wellbeing, which will be one of a new series of philosophy books called The Art of Living, which he is also editing.

Visit Mark Vernon's website and blog.

The Page 99 Test: Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life.

Writers Read: Mark Vernon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Marshall Cook's "Twin Killing"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Marshall Cook's Twin Killing.

About the book, from the publisher:

Everywhere Monona Quinn goes, people turn up dead — and Mo ends up confronting their killers! First there was Charlie, owner of the town diner and Mo’s first friend after moving to little Mitchell, Wisconsin (Murder over Easy). Then there was the parish priest (Murder at Midnight).And now, even a trip to the family farm yields corpses.

Mo’s twin sister, Madison, is already under plenty of pressure taking care of her mother and keeping the family farm going, with her husband serving in Iraq. So when her son (also one of twins) is arrested for drug possession, Mo drops everything — including her 80-hour-a-week job as editor of the weekly Mitchell Doings — and drives down to the farm, outside Summersend, Iowa, to help. The simple possession charge turns to suspicion of murder when not one but two locals, who are running a meth lab out of an abandoned barn outside town, are killed.

Add to the mix a troubled marriage — when she leaves home, Mo’s husband, Doug, tells her he can’t promise he’ll still be there when she returns — and you have tons of trouble for our amateur sleuth.

Among the praise for the novel:

"When her twin sister's son, Aidan, is arrested for marijuana possession, small-town newspaper editor Monona "Mo" Quinn rushes to the rural community in Iowa where she grew up, leaving in the middle of a fight with her husband, Doug, about the long hours she works. After Mo arrives, a meth laboratory is found in the town, and two area residents are murdered, thought to be the result of a drug deal gone bad; complicating matters further, Aidan is one of the suspects. Believing her nephew is not a drug user or a murderer, Mo sets out to prove his innocence. Personal issues intervene, as Mo finds that her mother's memory is slipping, and her old high-school boyfriend, now the sheriff, still has feelings for her. And then there's the matter of whether her husband will still be there when she finally returns home. The importance of family and faith permeate this mix of mystery and family drama, the third in a series."
--Sue O'Brien, Booklist

Marshall Cook lives in Madison, WI where he is an instructor with the University of Wisconsin's Department of Continuing Education. He is the author of over 20 non-fiction books, and the Monona Quinn mystery Series.

The Page 69 Test: Marshall Cook's Twin Killing.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ernest Lefever's five best Cold War classics

Ernest Lefever, author of "The Irony of Virtue: Ethics and American Power" (1998) and America's Imperial Burden (1999), named a five best list of "Cold War classics for an age of a resurgent Russia" for Opinion Journal.

The only novel on his list:

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler (Macmillan, 1941).

Born into a learned Jewish family in Budapest, Arthur Koestler (1905-83) was educated in pre-Nazi Germany. He became a Communist, served as a journalist in the Spanish Civil War and later visited the Soviet Union -- experiences that led him to conclude that both fascism and Marxism were evil political religions. Fluent in five languages, he wrote the novel "Darkness at Noon," one of the 20th century's most stirring anticommunist works, in English. He said that his characters in "Darkness at Noon" were fictitious but that "their actions are real," a composite of Stalin's "so-called Moscow Trials" and its victims, several of whom he knew personally. This intimacy with real victims enabled Koestler to make vivid the torture, brainwashing and forced confessions of uncommitted crimes. With consummate skill he underscored the vital moral issues of the Cold War, indeed of the human drama.

Read about the book that topped Lefever's list.

--Marshal Zeringue