First Lines

by Tom Tripp

If you're like me, you've probably spent a ridiculous amount of time agonizing over the first few lines of your latest work.  I say "ridiculous" because it's not immediately obvious that every successful author worried the way we do.  Then again, perhaps when some of these folks wrote, there was room — and patience — for a more measured opening.

Here are a couple of examples from the mystery/thriller genre to consider.  Some you will recognize; some probably not.  Just to make it a little more fun, I've left out the authors' identities (I'll provide those in the comments at the end of the day Tuesday after you've all given us your guesses).

———-

"He gripped the steering wheel loosely as the car, its lights out, drifted slowly to the stop.  A few last scraps of gravel kicked out of the tire treads an then silence enveloped him.  He took a moment to adjust to the surroundings and then pulled out a pair of worn but still effective night-vision binoculars.  The house slowly came into focus.  He shifted easily, confidently in his seat.  A duffel bag lay on the front seat beside him. The car's interior was faded but clean.

The car was also stolen.  And from a very unlikely source."

———-

"Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery.  He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio.   Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall an Sauniere collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas."

———-

"The American handed Leamas another cup of coffee and said, "Why don't you go back and sleep?  We can ring you if he shows up."

Leamas said nothing, just stared through the window of the checkpoint, along the empty street.

"You can't wait for ever, sir." Maybe he'll come some other time.  We can have the polizei contact the Agency. You can be back here in twenty minutes."

"No," said Leamas, "It's nearly dark now."

"But you can't wait for ever; he's nearly nine hours over schedule."

"If you want to go, go. You've been very good," Leamas added.

"I'll tell Kramer you've been damn' good."

"But how long will you wait?"

"Until he comes."

———-

The intense interest arouse in the public by what was know at the time as "The Styles Case" has now somewhat subsided.  Nevertheless, in view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family, themselves, to write an account of the whole story.  This, we trust will effectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist.

I will therefore briefly set down the circumstances which led to my being connected with the affair."

———-

"Captain First Rank Marko Ramius of the Soviet Navy was dressed for the Arctic conditions normal to the Northern Fleet submarine base at Polyarnyy.  Five layers of wool and oilskin enclosed him.  A dirty harbor tug pushed his submarine's bow around to the north, facing down the channel…."

———-

"It was the coldest winter for forty-five years.  Villages in the English countryside were cut off by the snow and the Thames froze over.  One day in January the Glasgow-London train arrived at Euston twenty-four hours late.  The snow and the blackout combined to make motoring perilous; road accidents doubled, and people told jokes about how it was more risky to drive an Austin Seven along Piccadilly at night than to take a tank across the Siegfield Line.

Then, when the spring came, it was glorious.  Barrage balloons floated majestically in bright blue skies, and soldiers on leave flirted with girls in sleeveless dresses on the streets of London."

———-

"It is cold at 6:40 in the morning of a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad.  At that hour on March 11, 1963, in the main courtyard of the Fort d'Ivry a French Air Force colonel stood before a stake driven into the chilly gravel as his hands were bound behind the post, and stared with slowly diminishing disbelief at the squad of solders facing him twenty metres away."

———-

Share on Facebook