What Is The First Paragraph Of Your Current Read?

[Donna Moore]

On the excellent 4MA mailing list, one of the standard questions each month is "What is the first paragraph on Page X of the book you are reading?" I get loads of book recommendations that way, so I thought I would start a similar discussion here, as I am always looking for suggestions for books to read.

So what is the first paragraph or two of the book you are currently reading?

I've just started TO KISS OR KILL by Day Keene from 1951. Here's the first few paragraphs as they are short:

'You never can tell what a big tough Polish boy will do when he finds a nude blonde in his bathroom. Especially if he is a heavyweight fighter who was born back of the yards, is married to a million dollars, and has a psychiatric record.

He might do a number of things. He might tell her to get out. He might yell for his wife. He might blow what's left of his top. He might even do what Barney Mandell did, come to his addled senses.

It really happened, in Chicago. It happened to Barney Mandell on the afternoon on the day he was released from the asylum as cured, because he hadn't wrung a parrot's neck in two years.

Oh, yes. The nude blonde was dead.'


Isn't that marvellous? What a start. Tells you enough about Barney Mandell to make you want to know more.

[Margot Renne Payne]

Donna-- I love this forum!!

Archie doesn't know for sure that it's her until that moment. There is a dull bloom of warmth in his spine, his vision blurs, and then he knows that Gretchen Lowell is the killer. He realizes that he has been drugged, but it is too late. He fumbles for his gun, but he is ham-fisted and can only lift awkwardly from his belt clip and hold it out as if it were a gift to her. She takes it and smiles, kissing him gently on the forehead. Then she reaches into his coat and takes his cell phone, turning it off and slipping it into her purse. He is almost paralyzed now, slumped in the leather chair of her home office. But his mind is a prison of clarity. She kneels down next to him, the way one might a child, and puts her lips so close to his that they are almost kissing. His pulse throbs in his throat. He can't swallow. She smells like lilacs.

--Heartsick, by Chelsea Cain

[DADavenport]

You figure now you got me in your clutches, you going to read me, like a book, right?- going to look right into my brain and you going to read it page by page, like I was some cheap-jack midnight entertainment to make you forget the mess you're in-right? Get you chuckling, get your greasy thumbprints all over my thought, get you through another miserable lonely night, right, Stuyvesant?

From The Caveman's Valentine, a truly unique and amazing mystery by George Dawes Green. I strongly recommend it, if you haven't read it already. You will be in awe.

[Laura Benedict]

Moon. Glorious moon. Full, Fat, Reddish moon, the night as light as day, the moonlight flooding down across the land and bringing joy, joy, joy. Bringing too the full-throated call of the tropical night, the soft and wild voice of the wind roaring through the hairs on your arm, the hollow wail of starlight, the teeth-grinding bellow of the moonlight off the water.

From "Darkly Dreaming Dexter," by Jeff Lindsay

Am I the only one who hasn't read all the Dexter books? I'm so slow on the uptake. My hubby and daughter love the Showtime Series, but I wanted to read the books first. First person is so tough to write well!

[DADavenport]

Go, Dexter! I am so excited that the season premiere is Sept. 30th. I feel just like it's Christmas, although Santa is a serial stalker and Dexter has a microscope slide with his name on it.

[Linda Lee]

Funny thing is, I love the tv show but couldn't finish the first book.

[Eileen Hawkins]

I never heard of Dexter until they started showing the Showtime series on CBS. So many books, so little time. No, you're not the only one. But I may be the only person who has never read a Harry Potter book.

[Jeannie Holmes]

"A seagull swooped low over the white, man-made beach of Biloxi. The midmorning sun was bright, and I squinted against the glare of the sparkling Mississippi Sound. The water held potential. An accidental drowning wouldn't be a bad way to go, and it would b so much easier on my parents than suicide. My BlackBerry buzzed against my waist, disrupting the constant whisper of the water, the promises of numbness and sleep. I turned back to my truck and checked the number. The newspaper. I was late again."

From Revenant by Carolyn Haines.

[Patricia Foulk]

I read Revenant several weeks ago. Frankly had trouble putting it down. She's a terrific writer with a heart-breaking protagonist.

Hope you enjoy it.

cheers

[Jeannie Holmes]

I totally agree. Carolyn's a great writer and a great friend, and so far, I'm loving Revenant. :-)

JK

[Joy Calderwood]

I dimly recall being eaten by the bat.

Short story called "Becoming Elijah" by Bob Meads

[Karen from AustCrime]

I really love the idea of keeping this thread ticking over so:

"Omar Yussef, a teacher of history to the unhappy children of Dehaisha refugee camp, shuffled stiffly up the meandering road, past the gray, stone homes built in the time of the Turks on the edge of Beit Jala. He paused in the strong evening wind, took a comb from the top pocket of his tweed jacket, and tried to tame the strands of white hair with which he covered his baldness. He glanced down at his maroon loafers in the orange flicker of the buzzing street lamp and tutted at the dust that clung to them as he tripped along the uneven roadside, away from Bethlehem."

The Bethlehem Murders, Matt Rees

[John McFetridge]

Was there anything quite so under-rated in this shallow, plastic, global-corporate, tall-skinny-latte, kiddy-meal-and-free-toy, united-colours-of-fuck-you-too world, than a good old-fashioned, no frills, retail blow job?

Christopher Brookmyre's The Sacred Art of Stealing.

Some of his others are a little more provocative, but so far this may be his best (I'm not finished it yet).

How come brookmyre never gets mentioned with the other Scots? Did he piss someone off?