Insidious Intent by Val McDermid

If Kathryn McCormick had known she had less than three weeks to live, she might have made more of an effort to enjoy Suzanne's wedding.

This is what we call foreshadowing, kiddies. But what is that you say? You say, no, it's not! You say, it's a spoiler right in the first line! Well, perhaps but what if this line is a secret red herring disguised as foreshadowing? The writer could be intentionally leaving the sentence incomplete. Perhaps, later the sentence will repeat in uncensored or unedited form, and it will read with the addition ...in her rat-infested motel room. That perhaps is not a very good example. I suspect this author could do a better job.

Besides, let's face it, everyone dies eventually, so it's understood that characters eventually die. Even Alice dies in some unpublished act. So dying isn't that interesting; it isn't that much of a hook, but the question that gets raised with this line is the how? It's that delicious morbid curiosity we have. We must know how? Don't worry; it's perfectly normal and healthy.

The next sentence and final one of the first paragraph:

But instead she had adopted her usual attitude of resigned disappointment, trying not to look too disconsolate as she stared at the other guests dancing as if nobody was watching.

The final two clauses of this sentence confuse me a little. Were the guests dancing as if no one was watching. If so, what kind of moves would that entail? I don't know about you, but I see the Minister of Silly Walks at his teen daughter's first high school dance bent on embarrassing her, but that image gets quickly superseded by old people doing stripteases. Or is she staring as if nobody is watching her staring at them? If so, I know exactly how creepy that looks.

Anyway, then the next paragraph introduces how she is bullied at work, by being excluded and passed over with polite conversation which is quite rude, or is she just paranoid? By the end of the first page it states that she was 'definitely insane.' Full stop.

First thing said:

"I've been headhunted for a job in Cardiff."

This is part of a flashback in which Kathryn remembers getting dumped three years before.

There was no reason to review this except the title caught my eye on the library shelf. The word insidious made me chuckle because it feels extreme in relation to intent, like it referred to something much worse than murderous intent. This made me wonder if the opening was as insidious as the title. Well, I guess that's what a title is supposed to do: function as click bait, as it were.

I like how the cover has no tagline that sharpens the hook, but instead a simple statement that this book is by a bestselling author. Her fans already know this, so this declaration can't be for them unless she's amassed a legion of forgetful fans. That means it must be on the cover for those who have no idea who this author is. My question is: Do people actually buy books based on the statement: Internationally bestselling author on the cover?

Is this scenario possible? Someone goes into a bookstore and asks a clerk for assistance and says, "I would like to buy a book, but I have, like, no idea what. Do you  have any ideas? Oh, and I read only bestselling authors. I don't have time to read crap."

Then what if the clerk suggested this book:

And the shopper says, "God no. It's not by a bestselling author. Weren't you listening to me.? Besides, it says it's a movie, so I'll just go see that now, won't I?"

No wonder Stephen King is slowly becoming irrelevant.

Anyway this book didn't pull me in. Quite the opposite, it got me distracted as the above review can attest to. I guess if a book isn't overriding my mind's natural impulse to imagine and isn't stifling all the associative thinking I'm prone to having, then I'm not reading.

Verdict:  2 Stars (Fail)

Sincerely,
Theo

Charcoal Joe by Walter Mosley

On Robertson Boulevard a block and a half north of Pico, just south of Whitworth Drive, on the eastern side of the street, there once stood a three-story turquoise building that had been a posh home in the thirties.

This sentence hooks how only a GPS device can, so nothing special to see here; blink and you'll miss most of it if you're lucky. Actually, this opening is what I like to call a twofer, a one-two punch. The first line sets up the hook, which comes in the second line:

But the owner died, leaving his real-estate-rich, cash-poor relatives to turn the domicile into a commercial property.

Actually, there's no hook there either, just the remnants of conflict from some other story that might very well get packaged and sold as a prequel. Page 1 goes on about the history of the building. I would have said droned on, but the building has some engaging history, so it's okay to read. But I didn't open this book to read about a building, no matter how charismatic it is. I came for characters I can care about and the stories that put them through the wringer. I didn't open this for a list of names on page 1.

It's openings like this that make me wonder: Why don't writers (like the rest of us who daily tell our friends the stories of what just shockingly happened to us or how cruel the world has been to us) start at the beginning, that is, with a character confronted with or confronting a problem? It's so simple, yet writer's insist on screwing around with the very concept of: In the beginning; they forget or ignore that the traits of starting are universal: it always begins with a bang, an act, an emotion or all of the above. The moment a biological conception becomes inevitable would be a great analogy.

Maybe writers think readers want to inch into a story like into cold water? Maybe writers think readers will short circuit if the story's too intense too soon? And by intense I, by no means, mean with violence. Or maybe writers think there's more than one way to hook a brain and compel them to buy it and into it?

Well, there isn't. Character+conflict=hook. The weirder, and further from the opiatic mundane reality that's slowly choking us readers to death, the better.

First thing said:

"Good Morning, Mr. Rawlins."

I was considering to give this a pass (but as close to a fail as the plaque is to your teeth) since some conflict is introduced. But after much thought, I can't because I've not been given a reason to care, which is essential in hooking my brain. However, it might not be that way for others; you know the type, the ones who'll eat rancid, stale food rather than 'let it go to waste.' But for my twitter-damaged brain, this one failed to get off at the starting line, and because so many books are tempting me to pick them up, that's all the time a writer gets to waste my time, before I move on to the next story.

It's a desolate, unsatisfying journey, jumping from book to flirting book like some lonely tease afraid of being taken advantage of. I slog on anyway in tentative hopefulness, trusting this quest will happily end eventually once I stumble upon a story that will hook me and compel me to read to the end.

Is it worth it? Sometimes I wonder. With so many books to choose from, it feels overwhelming at times, but eventually, I'll find it--I always do. I have lots of time to browse.

Verdict:  Fail

Rudy Globird

Koko by Peter Straub

At three o'clock i the afternoon of a grey, blowing mid-November day, a baby doctor named Michael Poole looked down through the windows of his second-floor room into the parking lot of the Sheraton Hotel.

I have high standards when it comes to horror. The standard is that I must be scared or disturbed on the first page, and/or I must find something unsettling in the writing. I use The Haunting of Hill House as my guiding light. That opening line is about as perfect as it gets for a horror novel. I rarely see anything that comes close to it, not even from the so-called experts of horror like Stephen King or Peter Straub.

This line begins with that age-old cliche: weather, before shifting to some guy looking out a window. It is not scary, though is perhaps a little moody. In support of Mood we have phrasing like that of baby doctor which does unsettle, ever so slightly. As well, the wording in places support the dark fantasy mood in the opening paragraph: we have words like lunatic, grinding, frustrated, enemy, damn and sacrificed. But it takes more than the right wording to hook a horror fanatic.

Mood is vital to getting the reader in the mood to be scared, but it needs to be in conjunction with character and conflict and not introduced first all by itself, as if there is some order to unrolling the literary devices in order to tell a story.

First thing said:

"Well, damn."

Verdict: Fail

With horror novels I don't want the promise of fear. I want it on the first page and in the first sentence. If the opening doesn't have the goods, then a horror novel is not doing what it's supposed to be doing on page 1 and therefore will not hook. This hooks because it contains the byline hook. If John Smith wrote this, with this opening, it would never see the light of day, which is to say, there is justice in the Universe, just not in these parts.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

How happy I am that I am gone! 

For a second I thought that this was in reference to the guy getting ready to blow his brains out. A little misdirection and foreshadowing that leads to confusion can go a long way in hooking a reader. The next lines:

My dear friend, what a thing is the heart of man! To leave you, from whom I have been inseparable, whom I love so dearly, and yet to feel happy!

According to Elmore Leonard, Goethe has used up his allotment of exclamation marks for a novel, though in Goethe's defense, he may not have read that bit of writing advice. The rest of the long opening paragraph has a feeling of ranting to it, which hints at the narrator's mental state quite well, knowing what we know of young Werther and his sorrows, assuming readers are familiar with this story before they start reading it.

I know you will forgive me. Have not other attachments been specially appointed by fate to torment a head like mine? Poor Leonora! and yet I was not to blame. Was it my fault, that, whilst the peculiar charms of her sister afforded me an agreeable entertainment, a passion for me was engendered in her feeble heart? And yet am I wholly blameless? Did I not encourage her emotions? Did I not feel charmed at those truly genuine expressions of nature, which, though but little mirthful in reality, so often amused us? Did I not—but oh! what is man, that he dares so to accuse himself? 

You get the idea. Nervous breakdowns are usually accompanied by an influx of thoughts related only by the punctuation used. Though young Werther's sorrows have not yet begun, we can see he is ripe for grief with the next line:

My dear friend I promise you I will improve; I will no longer, as has ever been my habit, continue to ruminate on every petty vexation which fortune may dispense...

First thing said:

"Shall I help you, pretty lass?"

This comes a couple pages in, depending on the edition you are reading.

Overall, I'm fairly certain Goethe did not write the opening of this short novel with the purpose of providing a marketable hook to sell copies. Even when he wrote this, he was fairly well known with a previous work. The hook was in the byline. Nevertheless, there is great emotion in this opening and the first glimpse of a character that is not quite as stable as you and I like to think we are.

This is part of the series: the top 100 novels from Daniel S. Burt's book called Novel 100, the top 100 novels of all time. There is debate of course as to what should be on that list, but his opinions are as good as any. The Sorrows of Young Werther ranks as the 78th best.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman

The letter had said to meet in a bookstore.

This is the opening line and opening paragraph of the novel. The next paragraph begins with weather, stating that it drizzling and cold but not cold enough for snow which means that it is not a night for a bookstore. I personally don't see the connection between bad weather and going to a bookstore. The paragraph continues with a character standing at a bus stop as the rain drums down. Doesn't sound like it's drizzling to me. I understand drizzle and drumming rain to be two different things, but that's just me. Perhaps I'm over-complicating things. Or perhaps this writer is. The next sentence in this paragraph contains a POV switch and a long sentence fragment. I will add it here for your critical judging pleasure.

Not one of your charming, quirky bookstores, with a ginger cat on the windowsill and a shelf of rare signed first editions and an eccentric, bewhiskered proprietor behind the counter.

I fail to find a verb in this line making it a phrase. Punctuation does not a sentence make.

The POV switches continue the next paragraph: Inside you could still hear the noise of cars...and I'm reminded of grade 6 homework I've checked in the past, hardly something a New York Times best-selling author should aspire to, or am I behind on the latest writing trends?

First thing said:

"Attention, Bookbumblers patrons!"

This opening feels like it should be the opening of a film rather than a book. It lacks conflict and lacks revealing character. It has an aura of suspense but only in that we know nothing about anything of the situation. As well, without conflict, there is no reason to care. I suppose since this is a series that there is something here that people who have read the series would find intense and suspenseful, but anyone picking this up without reading the other books, won't be interested or hooked by this opening.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Death of a Scholar by Susanna Gregory

Cambridge, Lammas Day (1 August) 1358

Oswald Stanmore knew he was dying.

There is not as much conflict here as people may think. I mean, we all die. If the line was something like: He knew he would die, then that would raise more questions. However, in this first paragraph of this prologue, we learn that Oswald has some secrets and has been a naughty boy and needs to destroy any evidence of his wrongdoings before he begins the arduous task of concentrating on his immortal soul. So we do get a hook in the first paragraph, which is not to say that the opening line fails, it's a great leading line.

Chapter 1

It was an inauspicious start for a new College.

This line, however, has a whiff of preamble to it. A big stink of preamble, actually, giving the opening line a watered-down vague character to it. The next line is where the story starts and would have made a much more powerful opening line, as it has character and conflict:

Geoffrey de Elvesmere of Winwick Hall lay dead in the latrine, sprawled inelegantly with his clothes in disarray around him.

I like the euphemistic phrase: sprawled inelegantly. Quickly we are presented with a body and a problem in the first paragraph of chapter 1. We learn something about the victim and the detective Matthew Bartholomew all in the first paragraph. Geoffrey would have been horrified at the spectacle he was providing for gawping onlookers. Readers are no different then those onlookers and out of curiosity read on.

First thing said:

"Marsh fever."

This comes in the prologue and moves the plot forward a little, which makes for effective dialogue in an opening. In this case, it reveals what is supposed to be ailing Oswald. He knows differently, though.

Verdict: Pass (Definitely)

For those who love mysteries there is enough mystery in the opening to hook. For those who love historical, there is enough history in the opening to hook. I like the writing style, but that's no surprise as it's coming from a UKer. So this gets a 3.5 stars out of 5.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Killer by Jonathan Kellerman

"I'm not going to shoot you, Dr. Delaware."

It's been said many times that beginning with dialogue is not a very good idea. I tend to agree, unless what being said introduces conflict and character. This opening line does both and so therefore works. What follows is a little bit of text that has the primary function of establishing tone in which the narrator wonders what the proper response is to such a statement. It's not really funny, but it's not really not funny either.

Then we get some context, while still on page 1 about who these characters are and why they are in this situation. There's a lot of beating around the bushing with sentences explaining what is not the cause of this scene, but as the hook is established in the opening line, most people, who like this genre will read on.

Unfortunately, nothing bad is going to happen and although there is the promise of conflict, it is a false alarm, as the opening line suggested all along.

As well, the title is a fail, I mean, come on, the book is a crime novel with a murder so there has to be a killer. This is definitely not a killer title and is about as interesting as a Salinger-approved book cover design.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke

It was the year none of the seasons followed their own dictates.

It goes on about weather. If the seasons had been dramatically different like snow in July or a heatwave in February then this might have been interesting to read. But as it's about nothing other than bad weather, dressed in simile, it is as boring as staring at paint drying. Not the way to begin a story. Ever. Unless, of course, you are James Lee Burke or any other author who enjoys the byline hook.

Then with paragraph 2 the story moves into back story about a father who disappeared looking for work and a mother that goes through a mental deterioration, before taking a further step back by one generation to go into some granddaddy back story. But it is the good kind, unusual and filled with conflict.

Despite weather cliche and back story dump, this opening does succeed in revealing character and mood, which is important to writers and English teachers, as well as to the average reader. This the reader may enjoy some sympathy for the character and care. So we have character development and setting but no story problem yet, which is sort of what a book is really about - conflict and character. We know who it is about, but not what it is about.

First thing said:

"Some people must have wandered off the highway onto our road."

This comes on the second page, so thankfully the back story and figurative setting descriptions (author gymnastics) don't last long as a scene starts to unfold: A car pulls up onto the narrator's property which leads to pulling out guns.

I like the writing despite the opening paragraph which isn't necessary where it is. I mean, if it was thrown in somewhere else it's effect would be the same plus it'd have the advantage of being less visible. But as the opening? There are better ways to begin. There is certainly no hook in the first paragraph. However, the story gets going quickly after the reader stumbles through the writer's writer's opening.

Verdict: Pass

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Robert B. Parker's Cheap Shot by Ace Atkins

I had dressed for Chestnut Hill: a button-down tattersall shirt that Susan had bought me, crisp dress khakis, a navy blazer with gold buttons, and a pair of well-broken-in loafers worn without socks.

I like Mr. Atkins. I enjoy his sparse prose style and simple, yet vivid characterization. I also like Parker, though I've only read a couple of things by him; I'm much more familiar with Atkins's work. I find many, if not most, crime novels and thrillers have protagonists that are pretty much the same persona with different names, clothes and backgrounds. Atkins, however, manages to treat his lead characters a little differently, if you are able to pay close enough attention. He also doesn't waste much time pulling the reader into the plot.

This opening line, however, stinks. Who cares what this dude is wearing? Why is this essential to know at the beginning of a story before conflict? Why is this ever essential? Why should I care? Will the clothes make this guy stand out; will he be targeted by the anti-khakis establishment, hunted down stripped of his blazer and burned alive on a heap of his clothes?

The next line makes an attempt to make the opening line vital, but I ain't buying it:

The lack of socks implied a devil-may-care attitude understood by the wealthy.

The opening continues by explaining that the narrator is going to meet a client who is an NFL football player. The tone of a Spenser novel is established right away with some of that humor as early as page 2 and a mystery surfaces around the same time. Someone is following this NFL player and Spenser is hired to find out why.

First thing said:

"You can't discuss this case with anyone, Mr.Spenser."

On a side note, there seems to be a lot of this type of novel, or rather this type of marketing ploy these days. Attach a dead author's name to a title and have an established writer write a novel based on characters or setting created by said dead writer. It's professional money grabbing fan fiction at its best and further evidence that either publishers are running out of ideas and believe creativity is drying up, or readers don't want anything new.

The opening line is an epic fail, but the opening quickly transitions to a scene in which character and conflict take over. The title and byline hook don't hurt either, but that's a little like cheating with a hook.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid

It was a source of constant disappointment to Catherine Morland that her life did not more closely resemble her books.

Obviously a reimaging of Jane Austen and obviously intentional. It is similar in tone to Pride and Prejudice. It's amazing how often Austen is rewritten in the 21st century. One wonders if it is either because her work is hard for the modern mind to relate to and needs a bit of dumbing down, or because people can't get enough of her. I suspect a little of the former and a lot of the later.

This opening line manages to hook for some reason, though the credit is to Austen and not McDermid, who acknowledges the fact. It sums up Austen's Northanger Abbey in many ways. But the line is also self-evident. Most readers want their lives to be like how they are in the novels they read, that is one reason why they read and in some cases obsess over them. The Harry Potter series, Twilight Saga and The Catcher in the Rye come to mind. (Sorry for putting Twilight and The Catcher in the Rye together in the same sentence, but they do share a common publisher in Little Brown. Shame on you Little Brown.)

First thing said:

"And what kind of future is she going to have?"

Good thing there's no copyright on titles, for it's the title together with the byline hook that will make people seek this title out. Even though, Austen's Northanger Abbey is not considered her greatest work, it is her one novel that I enjoyed the most and will probably reread some day. Anyone who knows anything about that novel, will be tempted by this and pray it is similar in some way.

Just for point of reference, the opening line from Austen's work:

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.

Jane Austen was apt at writing opening lines and has several that are memorable.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Death of a Policeman by M. C. Beaton

The fact that all the police forces in Scotland were to be amalgamated into one large force struck terror into police headquarters in Strathbane.

This line has just a dash of conflict. What it does establish for certain is setting, which is nice in this case if you like reading stories about Scotland. We learn a little later that one detective is happy with this news and since it is terrible news we can assume this detective likes this news for nefarious reasons. He wants to wiggle a certain police sergeant out of his cozy station in a town that will give you laryngitis trying to pronounce it.

First thing said:

"Sutherland is a huge country and it is surely economical to have Macbeth cover all of it."

As this is a series book, those who have read others and are into this are hooked by default as this book probably begins were the last left off. I've read a few of them and they start to tire after a while, with the same character conflicts and behavior, book after book. Cozies aren't usually design to hook in the first sentence or paragraph for fear of giving the readers who adore them a heart attack. Cozies ease their readers into the conflict. So one really has to show a commitment to them before beginning. Fortunately, they are usually worth the time.

However, as this is a mystery novel, there needs to be a mystery sooner rather than later. All of chapter 1's 20 pages is set-up that creates the red herrings by establishing motives for suspects. Only at the beginning of chapter 2 do we get a body.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Death at the Door by Carolyn Hart

Everything was set.

Before anything else I added the byline hook label, as that is what will draw people more than anything else to this novel. The plug on the cover won't hurt either: a Bookstore mystery. So I will add the book about books label too.

The opening line is short and does nothing to establish plot or character. Pure preamble. The only thing good about this is that it is short and can be easily ignored, except it can't because it is the first line. Unfortunately, the opening line is next to impossible to ignore. I try all the time but can't do it, unless it is long and tiresome like the opening line of Robinson Crusoe.

It's the next line that has the semblance of a hook:

She should be dead next week.

Not bad, but the pronounology is annoying. Who will be dead? Why all the mystery? Why hold back? What's the secret? Why be stingy with the plot points? Share! Authors don't because they want you to have a reason to read on. Clever, huh? But once someone has passed the threshold and read more than a few hundred books and perused thousands more in the quest to find a good read, this technique fails, it's like the carrot trick on the end of the stick - readers learn it's a trick.

As this is about a bookstore, I'd kill to have a beginning that tells us something about the bookstore, or even better, something about a mysterious book and all its quirky characteristics. Instead, the whole first paragraph has that flavor of preamble; all we learn is that something is up and that people are going to die.

First thing said:

"Not my lucky day."

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Private L.A. by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan

It was  nearing midnight that late-October evening on a dark stretch of beach in Malibu.

Exposition that is pure setting doesn't work for me. Exposition that introduces character and conflict does. I want to know what the story is about before when and where the story takes place, unless of course the setting is strife with conflict. This one isn't. I suppose there are some people who would feel differently, who would be very put out because they understand nothing of a story if they don't get the when and where first. But the essence of a story is things happening to people. That's just me, digging the essence of things first.

The next sentence:

Five men, lifelong surfers, lost souls, sat around a fire blazing in a portable steel pit set into the sand.

The lost souls bit is a little strange and needs some explaining. One possible inference being that they are lost souls because they are surfers.

First thing said:

"Bomber weed, N.P."

Then we learn that at least one of the five men had done two tours in Iraq and was incapable of love, hence the lost soul reference. A bit cliche, Terminator style, but anyway, these men sit around the fire so their back stories can unfold. In the second chapter of the prologue they are killed with a Glock! So there we have it, another violent prologue that fails to hook.

Chapter 1:

Shortly after midnight, as the first real storm of the season intensified outside, the lovely Guin Scott-Evans and I were sitting on the couch at my place, watching a gas fire, drinking a first-class bottle of Cabernet, and good-naturedly bantering over our nominees for sexist movie scene ever.

Exposition is fine if it's setting up conflict. This, however, reads like a Marlboro advert from the 1970's. Then, horror of horrors, we actually get the whole conversation of them discussing the sexist movie scene, like, ever. As if I care. This goes on for all of chapter 1, mercifully broken up, unfortunately, with back story until finally at the end, after being forced to go through this totally uninteresting character "development" to have the phone ring so the narrator can be told about the dead bodies in the prologue. Mindless character development, for the sake of character development never hooks.

Here's an idea: why not develop characters with them reacting to the difficult circumstances of the inciting event that's riddled with conflict? At least then it would be fun and not sound like one's reading pre-adolescent Flaubert struggling to inflate a story so as to buy another round of Botox treatments for his beloved grandmother.

Opening outline:

- Prologue: Mysterious men on a beach are discussing random things, getting drunk and high until they are mysteriously slaughtered by one of the mysterious men - who is sort of like the strong silent type who Americans love reading about and watching on TV or the big screen, but hate hanging out with and ignore in real life, as these strong silent types come off as rude and arrogant.

-Chapter 1: Two people are getting romantic talking about sexy scenes in movies, and are also drinking, until the phone rings and they are informed of what happened in the prologue.

There's a formula here (slaughter to sexy) and I expect the bestselling writers will continue with what works. I don't expect the market will reject this formula as the consumers who make up this mass market read on average only three books a year and so will never read enough to discover that this has been done a million times before.

Books today don't shine a light on the soul of the reader like they used to. Quite the opposite; it's as if we are scared of reading good literature for fear of what we might find inside ourselves.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

You Don't Want to Know by Lisa Jackson

Again, the dream creeps in.

...and it creeps in with weather as the dreams starts like this:

It's a foggy, gray day...

Seriously? Who actually dreams about weather? Or remembers the weather in their dreams? Or cares? Anyway, this is the nappy beginning of what must be a nappy prologue so we will stop here. Not hooked by a dream of foggy weather, and like a dream, this opening is vague and in parts one of those: ...it was like this, but not really... type of descriptions.

This author has one chance to hook me and she failed. Dream openings are perhaps the oldest cliche and the most obvious sign of an amateur, regardless if they've been published or not. Since this is a prologue, we can skip it for now and see if chapter 1 has a hook in the opening.

Chapter 1:

"I'm serious, you can't tell a soul," a breathy voice whispered.

Is that a comma splice? I'm serious and you can't tell a soul, are independent clauses so should be joined with a semicolon instead of a comma. The other thing that's weird about this line is the breathy voice. Is this opposed to a non-breathy voice? Lungs breath, the mouth and nose breath but a voice can't breath. Sound can't breath. If this is figurative and not to be taken literally then what is the image the author wishes to convey? A windy voice?

What this most likely means is that the person is breathing when speaking, as in heavy breather/creepy pervert, yet this voice is whispering. I'm of the camp that a person whispers not a voice, but if one wants to say a voice is the character, in order to create suspense and avoid the pronoun, well, whatever.

This gets the bed setting award when we learn that Ava is in bed and listening to characters talking, nicknamed Breathy Voice and Second Voice. It's silly when one stops and thinks about how this story is told.

The wording and structure is meant to create a scene with tension with a secret about Ava, but with sentences like those below, it doesn't come off as intense or mysterious at all, but more as an overwritten absurd prose assignment by a bored grade 10 student.

Inhaling a deep breath, she blinked.
Ava felt a jab of betrayal.
More whispering... [This so-called line reads like grade 5 material.]

The short of it is that Breathy Voice and Second Voice are talking about Ava in bits and pieces and this is supposed to make the reader curious and want to read on, as not all the information is provided to understand what this is about. Obviously, this will work for some, but I don't appreciate having my time wasted with melodramatic openings that belong in a horrid novel that Jan Austen would giggle over. In the final analysis, I really don't want to know.

Prediction: This author will not be read after her death as there will be other crap being published by her successors. In hundreds of years she'll be as well known as Bulwer-Lytton's editor. This type of work will be a mere footnote in the decline of Western civilization. That will be the legacy of such work, and there is plenty of it clogging up the bookshelves.

Verdict: Boring Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman

You would think it would be impossible to find anything new in the world, creatures no man has ever seen before, one-of-a-kind oddities in which nature has taken a backseat to the coursing pulse of the fantastical and the marvelous.

The first fifteen pages are in italics which is annoying and hard to read for me. I'm turned off just like that. But I ignore the italics, which are there, I suppose, either to stress the first fifteen pages and/or make them stand out as special, more special than what comes after which is not in italics. But there are other sections throughout the book in italics so one must assume that the sections in italics are about some other person, are diary entries, or take place in a different time and space etc. from the the rest of the book. Whatever.

As for the sentence itself, of course there are some things that we are still learning about, like some weird deep-water fish that's discovered and looks like the devil's offspring, so I tend to disagree with this line. On the other hand, those who don't read odd news, might agree with this line. Most likely one would have to in order to allow oneself to be pulled into this. Okay, so weirdness exists. But I'm still not hooked. Next line:

I can tell you with certainty that such things exist, for beneath the water there are beasts as huge as elephants with hundreds of legs, and in the skies, rocks thrown alit from the heavens burn through the bright air and fall to earth.

With the date of 1862, we learn why this is all possible. Then we get into back story and family history. As the premise for this novel has already been revealed early on page 1, it is interesting to read about this family whose father is both magician and scientist. This holds my attention for a while but then things get a little too mundane to bother reading on, things like Coney Island history, parks, housekeepers and electricity coming to town, and other descriptive tidbits.

First things said:

"Keep walking"

I like the title, and with the byline hook this should stand tall on the bookstore shelf or display stand.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

Augie Odenekirk had a 1997 Datsun that still ran well in spite of high mileage, but gas was expensive, especially for a man with no job, and City Center was on the far side of town, so he decided to take the last bus of the night.

There is something to be said for opening without death and violence, as if they are the only things that will hook the world these days. Of course, conflict is essential to a hook, and there is little in this opening line, at least nothing that would make one care to read on. Expensive gas and being unemployed are not engaging.

I award this with the car opening cliche because the character has gotten into a vehicle to drive to the beginning of the plot and conflict or in this case to be taken to it by public transportation.

By the end of this prologue we get the violence and death that the modern consumer demands.

First thing said:

"Good luck, man."

This dialogue neither reveals character or moves plot forward, it's only purpose is to establish King's tone, and champion the average man that we've deceived ourselves into believing is interesting enough to read about. When the truth be told these "average" joes in King's novels are anything but average or normal.

The opening scene is about this guy at a City center job placement place talking to some girl who has a kid and the struggles of being in a lineup with a baby and in unpleasant weather. Almost ten pages are invested in getting the reader mildly to care for these characters in dismal circumstances before King exterminates them, turning them into prologies (expendable characters that die horribly in prologues and whose only purpose in the novel is to hook us with their bloody and sometimes creatively violent deaths).

I flip through the prologue and I wonder why I needed to read all that. It's too long.

Chapter 1:

Hodges walks out of the kitchen with a can of beer in his hand, sits down in a La-Z-Boy, and puts the can down on the little table to his left, next to the gun.

The gun opening and drinking cliche begin chapter 1. The gun is treated like a dog (he pats it), on comes the TV and then we transition to paragraph 2 and back story. However, I like the writing style; it's a little more literary in tone - with long paragraphs, a trademark of a King novels - until page 2 when the obligatory swearing starts and that famous King tone starts pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Honestly, this opening doesn't feel any different than any other typical novel of this genre.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

"Someone bloody famous," said the hoarse voice on the end of the line, "better've died, Strike."

Opening with dialogue puts an opening at risk of not hooking. The example above is a good example of how dialogue fails to hook.

This conversation begins because someone is upset that someone else (who is unshaven) is calling early in the morning. It's mostly incidental banter. There's lots of swearing on page 1 too, as if the Potter creator is trying to cleanse herself of wholesome writing. The swearing doesn't stop there either; it's as if someone is either paid extra to write swear words or the characters are really stupid. In real life people swear, but those who do it in every sentence and so aggressively are the ones most people like to avoid, unless these swearers are at a bar or getting shot at in some distant land. It just sounds forced, shallow and unnatural. I want to avoid unimaginative characters who swear as much as I want to avoid unimaginative real people.

Page 2 is mostly of the descriptive variety with walking as the characters get up and walk to converge on the first plot point. The description describes pointless things like a street and a cafe, broken up with some urination before describing Strike. He is dark and large with a grimy jaw and is bruised. By the sounds of it, this guy's name could be Stanley, but because he's been beaten up in that manly attractive way, he might be hallucinating into thinking he's called Strike, as in strike me.

I'm sorry, I like the other books by this author but the Robert Galbraith trademark stuff is not as good. I couldn't finish the last one and have no interest in this one, and that's saying a lot for someone who loves to read and write mysteries. Page 1 does not excite me so I dare not invest time in the other 400+ pages.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Vertigo 42 by Martha Grimes

Vertigo 42, the City
Monday, 6:00 P.M.

It was far too high to see Old Broad Street down below, but the windows that traveled all the way around the lozenge-shaped room gave as great a view of London as he'd ever seen.

Before I did anything else, I added the byline hook label to this review. I'm sure many writers at this level still want to have beginnings that hook, but there are just as many more that go with being wordily annoying instead, eager to show off their writing chops.

Beginning with setting only works if it's an unusual setting, like if the story is set in the belly of a whale or on a snowy day in the Sahara desert. With this opening line we have a person in a skyscraper. Nothing suspenseful about that, at least not yet,but when the suspense will start is anyone's guess at this point. Some conflict comes at the end of the first paragraph:

He was so high up...he'd almost had an attack of vertigo...

But this is not the intense conflict that forces readers to turn pages. The first page spends ink describing and explaining setting, so I surmise after a quick glance. I already know I'm not reading this. There is no hook on page 1 and there are so many other options out there.

First thing said:

"My favorite view."

So begins some incidental dialogue that further turns me off this opening. You know, things like:

"Sorry about that."
"No problem."
"You like stuff?"
"Some stuff, yeah."
"I love stuff."
"Thanks for talking to me."
"No problem."

In Martha's defense, she does a slightly better job at the incidental chit-chat than I've done above.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Winners by Danielle Steel

Lily Thomas lay in bed when the alarm went off on a snowy January morning in Squaw Valley.

Two cliches in the opening sentence are not as common as one might think. I'd say about the majority of the books I open have some sort of cliched, uncreative opening, but usually not in the same sentence. Individually they are, or they wouldn't be cliches. I'm not sure which is worse, the bed setting or the weather report. I suppose the weather report is abused more, so it's worse.

The whole first paragraph is about the weather and the problems it's sort of causing because Lily likes to ski and has the hots for a certain instructor, Jason and may not be able to see him because of all the snow. Damn snow.

Paragraph 2 is a back story dump about past Christmas breaks, where they were taken and with whom and for what. In paragraph 3 we return to the bed setting and Lily stretching as she dreams about Jason. Thankfully, this is interrupted with paragraph 4 as the narrative yo-yos to more back story, unfortunately, about her father, simple beginnings in a mining town, school, etc. It's like being in bed with Lily as she daydreams about Jason and shows you a photo album of her life at the same time. I want to run.

First thing said:

"I was wondering if you were going to sleep in."

The title is boring and sounds like a department store, that's just how nondescript it is. Obviously, the hook is in the byline. This author has her readers who buy this regardless of how it opens. But I wonder how new readers, picking this up author up for the first time get hooked. The romance element, a girl in bed on a snowy day dreaming about a boy, must do it.

Verdict: Boring Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye and The Big Sleep

The Long Goodbye

The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers.

Although there isn't much conflict here to write home about, we are introduced to a character and made aware of something about him - not only that he's drunk, but that he is in a Rolls-Royce and at a club.

In the next two paragraphs we get mostly physical descriptions of characters. Despite this, there is a mildly interesting scene that unfolds that makes me wonder about the sexual orientation of these characters and hence of the author.

First thing said:

“Look, mister,” he said with an edge to his voice, “would you mind a whole lot pulling your leg into the car so I can kind of shut the door?”

Verdict: Fail

The Big Sleep

It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. 

Weather opening cliche deserves a fail. What follows is the narrator describing what he's wearing, right down to the detail of his socks. Then we get a description of a new client's house. Then another description of a girl. With all this description, this opening would get an epic fail except this is written by Chandler. He use of similes and language is uniquely his. Of course, although it was relatively fresh at the time of writing, it's been done to death by 2014. But no one does it like quite like Chandler.

...but she looked durable.

She came over near me and smiled with her mouth and she had little sharp predatory teeth, as white as fresh orange pits and as shiny as porcelain. They glistened between her thin too taut lips.

First things said:

“Tall, aren’t you?”

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht