Thus begins a prologue. This line successfully raises a few questions, one being which fall? But as this is a mystery novel, it effectively hooks, introducing a crime and dead bodies right away. For some reason there are many mystery writers reluctant to begin with the crime a.k.a plot of their novel asap.
One of them I knew and the other I'd never laid eyes on until I saw him in the morgue.
What follows is a paragraph describing the man the narrator knew.
Paragraph two begins:
Pete Wolinsky was gunned down the night of August 25 on a dark stretch of pavement just off the parking lot at the Santa Teresa Bird Refuge.
Bad news and the beginning of a mystery as we learn about the circumstances concerning the deaths of the two men.
Chapter one:
On my way back into town, I stopped at the car wash.
Chapter one's opening line is lame, but by then the reader should be hooked. This novel gets a pass based on the prologue that for once does something and is not just pretty words to introduce the reader to a university degree or an author's awkward and uncertain stumbling into a beginning with purply prose.
First thing said:
"You know him?"
Verdict: Pass
Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht
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