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When at first I proved unable to keep the tone light, Ozzie suggested that I be an unreliable narrator. “It worked for Agatha Christie in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,” he said. In that first-person mystery novel, the nice-guy narrator turns out to be the murderer of Roger Ackroyd, a fact he conceals from the reader until the end.
Thanks for spoiling that DK.
Instead, from the shell came the rough breathing of a beast. The urgent rhythm of a cruel need, the grunt of mad desire. Here in the summer desert, winter found my blood.
Omg, I hate Dean Koonz's writing.
Self-effacing, somewhat shy, Harlo had not labored on the car with the hope either that it would be a babe magnet or that those who had thought of him as tepid would suddenly think he was cool enough to freeze the mercury in a thermometer.
DK sure does love his similes.
Beyond the slumpstone wall lay a backyard, a swimming pool. Dappled with morning light and tree shadows, the water glimmered in shades of blue from sapphire to turquoise, as might a trove of jewels left by long-dead pirates who had sailed a sea since vanished.
This is a swimming pool. A. Swimming. Pool. Odd happens to run past it while persuing someone. I would expect this description for some sort of mythical lake that plays a big part in the story (although it's still not a very good simile).
On the farther side of the pool, behind a sliding glass door, a young woman stood in pajamas, holding a mug of whatever brew gave her the courage to face the day.
🤦🏻♀️
The two of us plunged into the deep end of the pool. Having banked a summer’s worth of desert heat, the water wasn’t cold. Thousands of bubbles like shimmering showers of silver coins flipped across my eyes, rang against my ears.
Their appetite is for operatic terror. The violence they crave is of the most extreme variety: multiple untimely deaths spiced with protracted horror, served with cruelty as thick as bad gravy.
Kill me.
We were puzzling over this mystery, not for the first time, when Viola Peabody brought our late lunch. Viola is as black as Bertie Orbic is round, as thin as Helen Arches is flat-footed.
What does that even mean?
“She’s had things hard. She doesn’t need this.” “Shot in the head? Who does need it?”
OK, this was actually pretty funny, so credit where credit is due.
