In The Beginning…

 

What attracts you to a book?

The cover, of course, can make – or break- a book. Cover blurbs, jacket flap info, those things also tell you more about a book and whether or not you want to read it.

But once you've examined all that, most of us usually crack the cover and begin to read. The first few paragraphs, the first page, and especially that first line, can make you want to read further – or not.

This issue, we ask several authors to share their first lines and some of the inspiration behind them.

"Such exquisite hands. What a pity to waste them." – From FREEZER BURN

In author Gayle Carline's (http:// www.gaylecarline.com ) debut novel FREEZER BURN (Echelon Press, fall 2009), Peri Minneopa trades her housecleaning career for a PI license. Perfect timing, especially when cleaning a former client's freezer, she finds a severed hand inside, wearing an expensive ring.

Carline's first line definitely grabs your attention, which is what she wanted. "I was going for a mysterious opening to suck a reader into the tale," she says. "I wanted people to wonder who was thinking this, to see the thinker as a lover of beauty who might be somewhat twisted."

 

"Hot breath from the lioness touched my cheek.
"Round dark irises in gold eyes, nostrils flaring and relaxing, a complex pattern faint on the black nose pad, the harsh breath of a meat eater." – From NIGHT KILL.

In NIGHT KILL (Poisoned Pen Press, Sept. 2008), author and former zookeeper Ann Littlewood ( http://annlittlewood.com ) uses her past experience as background for her zookeeper protagonists, Iris Oakley and husband Rick Douglas. His drinking and a fight lead to more problems as Iris finds Rick's body torn to pieces near the animal area she supervises – the lions. She determines to find the truth behind the murder and becomes a target of increasingly threatening "accidents."

Littlewood says, "my goal was to plunge the reader into close contact with a big cat immediately, then pull back a little and show the zoo setting. Iris Oakley, the feline keeper, is training the lioness to open her mouth (show her teeth) on command, with a meatball reward. This training helps Iris manage the cat's health, entertains the lioness, and also gives her occasion to ponder the relationships between humans and a powerful predator. It introduces the protagonist and a killer--one exempt from human morality."

 

January 1989. Beijing , China .
"Idiots! A simple task! I send two young soldiers to extract information from a helpless old man. What could be easier? Yet they return saying he refuses to cooperate?…" –From RABBIT IN THE MOON.

Authors Deborah and Joel Shlian ( http://www.shlian.com ) choose China and the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre as the setting for their thriller, RABBIT IN THE MOON (Oceanview Publishing, June 2008).

The book opens with a prologue 40 years earlier as Mao is marching into Shanghai with these lines: "It is Chinese to hope." Yet, holding the child's hand, Dr. Ni-Fu Cheng thought he would never see his daughter again,

That line opens, and ends the novel, providing a sense of Chinese thinking to the book. " Shanghai was a city on edge," Deborah Shlian explains. "Nervous gossip and anxious speculation electrified the air. We eventually decided to add the new lines in the beginning and the same first line at the end, allowing for symmetry."

 

"For once, the girl in the wall mosaic did not reply to the Lord Chamberlain's question."— From SEVEN FOR A SECRET.

In SEVEN FOR A SECRET (Poisoned Pen Press, April 2008), the latest in the Lord Chamberlain 4th century mystery series from Mary Reed and Eric Mayer ( http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/ ), John finds the brutally murdered corpse of a young woman. The woman, a model for a mosiac he keeps in his study, was about to give him some vital information. Uncovering that secret takes John, who walks a fine line between remaining loyal to his emperor while searching for the truth, on a twisting route to a dangerous ending.

It made sense to focus on the mosaic in their opening line, says Reed, since "the plot hinged on the murder of the woman who claims to have been the model for the little girl in the mosaic, and whom protagonist John is in the habit of talking to her at times."

 

"Members of the jury had been chosen from a box of crayons, with colors ranging from Burnt Sienna to Laser Lemon to Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown. The jury's foreman, a woman of indeterminable age, wore a somber pantsuit, enhanced by tummy-liposuction, and a somber, surgically-enhanced face. Her skin tone was Crayola Peach (formerly known as Flesh)." – From STRANGLE A LOAF OF ITALIAN BREAD.

In STRANGLE A LOAF OF ITALIAN BREAD (Five Star, May 2009), the latest in Denise Dietz's "wacky" Ellie Bernstein/Lt. Peter Miller diet club mysteries, Barbara Streisand clone Sara Lee is found strangled prior to the community theater auditions. Now diet club leader Ellie Bernstein wants to know why everybody, or at least somebody, didn't like Sara Lee.

Dietz, (http://www.denisedietz.com) jokes that she wrote the "colorful" opening "because I thought it sounded good." But she did have a more serious reason as well.

" I wanted to open the book with a court verdict but didn't want to say something like "the jury was ethnically diverse," she explains. "So I began doodling with words and I suddenly had a Dr. House epiphany: an image of a box of crayons. I thought , Jury box. Box of crayons. Aha! Perfect!"

As an aside, one of the book's characters is also writing a novella, which can be downloaded for free at Dietz's website. Its first line: “The lady's about to fall, Mum,” the little girl gasped. Pigtails swaying, her chin tilted like the prow of a miniature ship." —From DREAM ANGEL, a novella.

 

"Claire Hanover's knees slammed up toward her chest. She shoved them down and around the mogul and braced for the next impact. Oof!" --From TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET.

In TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET, the second in the Claire Hanover gift basket designer mystery series, (Five Star May 2009), Claire and her family go on a ski vacation a couple of months after the events in A Real Basket Case . The vacation quickly goes "to hell in a handbasket" when the sister of her daughter's boyfriend is killed on the slope.

Author Beth Groundwater ( http://bethgroundwater.com/ ) says her goal was to give readers a sense of place.

"What I wanted to convey with this opening was that this novel is set in ski country ( Breckenridge , Colorado ), and the plot will include a lot of action, excitement, winter sports, and violence, particularly murders, " says Groundwater.

 

"The rain didn't bother him, even though London 's rain fell thicker and harsher than country rain." – From VEIL OF LIES.

In her debut novel, VEIL OF LIES, A Medieval Noir (St. Martin's, Nov. 2008), author Jeri Westerson (http:// www.JeriWesterson.com ) tells the story of Crispin Guest, disgraced knight turned detective who must untangle a web of double-crosses, a plot to bankrupt England's cloth trade, and murder, while keeping ahead of the point of a sword. Or will the Mandyllon, t he legendary relic with the face of Christ that can force anyone to tell the truth, reveal the answer?

"What inspired this was a way to get to the heart of my complex protagonist," says Westerson. "Moody, dark, Crispin Guest is a disgraced knight turned detective on the mean streets of 14th century London . He's had to re-invent himself from his life as a lord and knight to someone on par with thieves and menials. And though he uses his wits to get by, he can't ever forget the life he left behind. The idea behind this first line was that even though he's standing there in the rain, getting soaked, what bothered him far more was being sized up by a mere servant."