Saturday, June 21, 2008

Jonathan Santlofer's "The Murder Notebook"

Jonathan Santlofer is the author of several novels and a highly respected artist whose work has been written about and reviewed in the New York Times, Art in America, Artforum, and Arts, and appears in many public, private, and corporate collections.

He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, The Murder Notebook, and reported the following:
In this case, Ford Madox Ford may be right. Page 99 in The Murder Notebook is the first page of Chapter 16. Not many chapters open with one of my sketches, but this one does: a man, dead on the floor, gun in hand, blood pooled around his head. My police sketch artist, Nate Rodriguez, has just discovered the body, accompanied by a rush of emotions: shock, guilt, and suspicion. He'd been tailing the guy for a few days, but now he's too late. The scene suggests suicide, but Nate's not sure. The one thing he is sure of is that the two murder cases he's been investigating are linked - something the police department does not want to hear. Trying to prove that connection is going to set Nate on a circuitous path which will bring him up against the NYPD, the FBI, and finally the U.S. government. In other words, big trouble for Nate!
Read an excerpt from The Murder Notebook, and learn more about the book and author at Jonathan Santlofer's website. View the video trailer for The Murder Notebook.

--Marshal Zeringue