I do not know the exact rule...Between British and American usage, I don't think there is a definitive arbiter.
For me, I always put the punctuation mark - whether a comma or a period - inside the quote.
It seems that is an American or Canadian way of doing it...
Look at the page linked here: It is a British grammar guide...Look at the second example: I would disagree with that.
I.e., I would put the comma inside the quote, like they do with the period in the last example.
Look at this sentence from
www.Salon.com - an American on-line journal.
Three years ago, as the co-author of
"Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," the book that launched the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign, Jerome Corsi was arguably one of the 2004 presidential election's single most influential people.
That is a title - not speech - and they put the comma inside the quote marks.
This is opposite of what the Brits do in the second example mentioned above...
If you Google "english punctuation," you will find many sites. But you will probably just get confused.
Better to Google The Globe and Mail or The Washington Post...scan some pages and see how they do it.
And scan some pages in your American thrillers. See how they do it there. Then scan the Eliot Pattison book. It is from a British publisher. See if there is a difference.
If you are writing to/for Americans, do it the way they do.
Sorry I cannot be more definitive.
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