Beginnings
Last night I dreamed I was being driven somewhere in a CIA car. There weren’t enough cupholders. (I had orange juice, coffee, ham sandwich.) So since Sunday is when we do beginnings, taking a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™, how about we look for something with espionage in the story. There are a few possibilities but let’s go with Nerve Damage. (Its obituary related premise was one of my hookiest in my opinion, although I’m probably wrong since I don’t recall any critics noticing. This first sentence actually applies as well to Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge – coming July 25, preorderable) – but in a very different way.
Sometimes the dead live on in your dreams.
Tags: beginnings, Mrs. Plansky's Revenge, Nerve Damage
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 26th, 2023 at 8:34 am and is filed under Chet The Dog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
9:01 am on March 26th, 2023
Greetings!
What a dream, Spence. :^)
Another example of not just a beginning, but first sentences and the whole story. Like it!
RIO! Just wondering since you mentioned re-reading some of OFA’s books, do you and Friend read one book at a time, or do you read two or more books at one time? My brain can only handle one at a time…
What about the rest of youse on the blog…One book or two at a time?
Create a good day!
10:14 am on March 26th, 2023
Good day to all.
10:30 am on March 26th, 2023
Good day to everyone.
The preference here is to read one book at a time.
That’s the one thing that bugged me in college, multiple books to read at the same time. I think it is because I can remember more of what I read.
Have a super Sunday and if you can, have a super sundae as well.
1:22 pm on March 26th, 2023
Voila! The first tulips of spring, with some hyacinths sneaking in as well
1:46 pm on March 26th, 2023
Hookier than “It was a dark and stormy night.”
I’ve had more than one book going at a time but don’t any longer. My copy of Good Dog, Bad Cop arrived before I could start Collared so the timing was perfect. A little literary change until I was back to reading the Andy Carpenter series. Still no word on a fourth book for the Mace Reid K-9 mysteries. (You may recall both of those series being mentioned in a Zoom interview that Peter participated in with the other authors.) Was hoping for a fourth given the titles, Finder, Keepers, Lost. Maybe Weepers would be to dark and depressing? I think it is a missed opportunity. Who made the rule that three is a set unless it is a series?
Sometimes the dead live on in your dreams. Sometimes in your yard. I’ve planted an Apricot Candy tree in the “fountain planter” of my Mom’s back yard in honor of their dog Candy. There is a small St Francis statue and a shallow bird bath with stones in it for the butterflies and bees. I will be adding a Princess Buttercup shrub rose in honor of our first dog, Cuppy and then a Sweet Diana for Diana pawPrints and a Dolly’s Forever rose for their current dog Dolly. Unfortunately there are no roses for Freyja, Mitzi, Ramses, Caesar or Goliath that are available in this country or currently available at all. But they all live on in our memories and occasionally we’ll mention a story about one of them.
I’ve been thinking about rereading all of the Chet and Bernie mysteries but I want to get through all of the Andy Carpenter books first. It’s tough when there are over 20 before you start the first one. Plus I don’t always get to read every night.
Now when I was teaching I would read a ton of trashy bodice-rippers on my break. They were paperbacks donated to the local library so no limit on how many you could check out and no late fees if they were returned late. So I would check out 10 a week and just rip through them. I think my record was three in one day. I could enjoy reading but they were so shallow and formulaic that I forgot the plots as soon as I was done and on to the next one. Read a lot of Charlotte Heyer. Did that for a few summers, then moved on to alternative fiction. I can’t remember when I started the dog-centric books. Could have been when I had Caesar or might have been when I got Ramses. Chet and Bernie are my favorite by far. I love a talking dog that doesn’t talk. That has become my criteria for books and movies. If the dog is moving it’s lips and some actor is doing a voice over, not the movie for me. I’ll take the original Incredible Journey over the Disneyfied one any day.
3:19 pm on March 26th, 2023
WTAFP: The flowers are lovely!
MLAIUPPA: I am laughing at the bodice rippers. :^)
In the entire time I knew my late mother-in-law, the only books she ever read were Harlequin romances.