The Guardians by Andrew Pyper

Memory Diary
Entry No. 1

We watched them come in.

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of this blog we thought I would review another book by the author who started it all off. That time round he got a resounding epic fail for how he opened his 'award-winning' novel.

The opening line from this effort reads like an exercise in pronounology. It could be about anything, absolutely anything in the universe. We don't learn who 'we' are, but we do learn that 'they' are police officers going into a house. The first is one fat officer (stereotype intended?), who shows up. Whatever is in the house is disturbing, as fat cop comes out of the house transformed into sweaty fat cop. Fat cop calls it in and soon more police show up, an ambulance and fire trucks, before the body bags start coming out. This prologue ends:

A gulp of french fry, onion ring and chicken finger that, to this day, is the taste of death.

We remember all this, though still not everything.

And some of the things we remember may not have happened at all.

Huh? But that's it. We never learn what happened, or what this is about. Just bodies that the narrators may have remembered or may not have remembered because it may or may not have happened. It sounds like a writer just wrote a first draft of the opening of a story, and is still not sure what is going to happen next. However, the subtitle to this masked prologue explains more than the text. Whoever this 'we' pronoun is, they have memory problems, so one may reasonably infer. So this would have to be the opening hook, which serves to entice readers into the story, but may also warn them that there might be some ambiguity for a bit.

Plus, how does a gulp of food taste like death, as opposed to the food itself? Remove the propositional phrase of...etc., and we have this: A gulp is the taste of death.

Chapter 1:

The call comes in the middle of the night, as the worst sort do.

So this line works two opening cliches: the waking up or bed setting cliche and the phone call cliche.

First thing said:

"I don't even know what time it is."

This line sounds less awkward if that sentence and the next hadn't been separated with punctuation: "But it's late, isn't it?"

Then the voice is described, which is notable enough to add here:

A familiar voice, faintly slurred, helium-pitched between laughter and sobs.

This is another example of the descriptive style of this writer: It seems everything can be described as a series of contradictions co-existing within the being of each thing out there. Take the opening of the Demonologist:

Last night I had the dream again. Except it was not a dream.

Later when describing Ben, a guy who hung himself which is what the phone call is about, the narrator, Trev, talks about how Ben and he might ...have been separated by an ocean, or an even greater barrier, as impossible to cross as the chasm between planets, as death.

Then the next paragraph begins:

Despite this, we were still close. There was a love between us too. A sexless, stillborn love, yet just as fierce as the other kinds.

Yeah, right. Why can I not believe that or imagine that after the hyperbolic chasm description that is like as big as life and death? Hyperbolic chasm description might just be referring to distance, but I can't help but think it has more to do with personalities or the natures of the characters. There are certainly plenty of hints to suggest this is the case. We learn that what connects these two characters is a secret - a secret unknown even to Ben and Trev!

There are many contrary concepts in this writing that makes one wonder why one is even bothering to read. I suppose one could just ignore them if one reads fast enough or multitasks, you know, by thinking about what to have for dinner while reading.

Still the prologue and what we can infer from it and the fact that dialogue is used and a scene unfolds early on in chapter 1 gets this the 'meh' pass.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Savage Girl by Jean Zimmerman

Prologue
Manhattan. May 19, 1876

I wait for the police in the study overlooking Gramercy Park, the body prone on the floor a few feet away.

A problem and a character in the opening line cannot fail to make one read on, which is what each line in a story should do: make readers want to read the next one, so onto the next line:

Outside, rain has cooled the green spring evening.

Unfortunately, this human weakness of succumbing to cliche rears its ugly head in this novel as it does in millions of others. The next paragraph talks about and describes the room this pronoun is in, which is not what the reader wants. The reader wants to know about the body, not the real estate agent's tour of the place. I understand that authors do this to build suspense, done by not revealing what the reader wants revealed right away, but I've always said that that is a rather hackneyed way of creating suspense, sort of suspense by procrastination. A little is fine and may be quite effective; a lot is annoying and feels like wasting readers' time by toying with them. In this case, it is thankfully short and in the next paragraph we return to the body and the interesting circumstances surrounding it, which are: Either 'she' killed 'him' or the narrator killed him but has no memory of it. The use of pronouns bugs me, I can infer more about the dead person than the living in this opening.

While still on the first page the narrator explains that whether it was 'she' who killed him or 'I' who killed him, the narrator is going to take the blame and therefore must wait in the room while contemplating what to do to the body until he/she/it is caught red-handed. The circumstances are unusual enough to pull readers in and it's nice that the hook is so soon. However....this is the prologue, an attachment to the beginning of a story. Chapter 1, where a story is officially supposed to begin rarely continues where a prologue left off, if it did, then the prologue would be chapter 1 and chapter 1 would be chapter 2.

Chapter 1:

In June of 1875, we made our way down Virginia City's "A" Street, proceeding south from the center of town towards the mountains.

As was expected the opening of chapter 1 does not continue  the action of the prologue but instead goes back in time to tell the story that leads to the prologue which one can assume will be a climactic moment in the novel later on, or thereabouts. On top of that, we have the walking cliche here, characters travelling to the beginning of the story and conflict. It goes on to explain who the people are that are walking and I lose interest. I'm not the only one; the library copy I have has the page folded after the prologue. Someone else stopped after reading the prologue, thinking that chapter 1 was for another day. Too bad, I really liked that prologue, despite the split infinitive.

First thing said:

"Where is it?"

Verdict: Pass (barely)

A deeply anticlimatic chapter 1 and a couple of cliches reduces the rating of this opening.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Fear Nothing by Lisa Gardner

Prologue

Rockabye, baby, on a treetop....

This counts as the first sentence or sentence fragment of the book. To some it might seem creepy and acceptable as an opening, perhaps establishing tone or mood. Not me, though. It's just a nursery rhyme I've heard a million times or thereabouts.

The next sentence shows promise, though how it relates to the opening line is a mystery, and therefore raises a question, but not the kind of question that hooks, not a story question, but a what-is-this-author-doing question. It's that kind of question that evaporates a hook.

The body was gone, but not the smell.

A crime scene is revealed, hence a crime is introduced. Unfortunately, it's broken up with more of that annoying nursery rhyme, that makes me roll my eyes and think of old-school 1980's phlegm horror.

Chapter 1:

My older sister discovered my condition when I was three years old.

Preamble that does nothing but promises back story. Pure exposition. The next line is the hook:

Our foster mother walked in on her wielding the scissors, while I stood there, bare arms obediently held out, blood dripping from my wrists onto the olive-green shag carpet.

Then the first thing said:

"Check it out, she doesn't even care."

Dialogue that reveals character and moves plot forward is good writing. Even though this beginning is technically a flashback and not a part of a forward narrative, its gruesomeness and the information provided is of the need-to-know variety. We learn that the narrator does not feel physical pain. Such unusual characters usually make for pleasant reading.

There are questions raised in this opening and the fact it is cliche free (no weather, guns, cars, beds, dreams, etc,)  makes this opening hookable.

Verdict: Pass

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Promises in Death by J.D. Robb

She was dead the minute she answered the 'link.

So we have what looks like a dead prologuie in this opening line of the prologue. The question here is what does it mean by the 'link? The rest of the paragraph explains that "she" the pronoun really wasn't dead as soon as she answered the 'link, because she gets excited and gets dressed, so the opening line is speaking figuratively, not literally. The short prologue ends with this prologuie dying, of course, at the hands of a friend. That is all we learn.

Chapter 1:

Eve stepped out of the shower and into the drying tube.

At this point I'm thinking this story takes place in the future and the word 'link is some kind of future technology. Placing little words here and there will have a way of doing that. It's not bad; it's better than having a description or setting dump that goes for pages. Little is more.

The opening paragraph does little except describe the day in the life of someone in the future and does not hook.

First thing said:

"Be back soon."

The prologue has hooking elements in it but as it is a prologue, the writer must rehook in chapter 1, as the first chapter, where the protagonist's story begins, usually consists of different characters in different places with different problems. However, what makes a chapter 1 unpalatable is that the connection between chapter 1 and the prologue are never evident - so much so that it sometimes feels like one is reading a new story.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

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

The Harem Midwife by Roberta Rich

Circassian Mountains
Ottoman Empire
1578

One spring morning as the sun dappled the rocks with golden light, drying the dew from the night before, making the world look as scrubbed and as fleecy as a cloud, Leah made a blunder that was to lead to her death.

Preamble. This reads something like a blurb that would be on the back cover, minus, of course the poetiky weather report. And I'm no expert, but Leah doesn't sound like a 16th century name. It may well be, but it sounds a little too modern for me and somewhat obstructs the historical image that this novel will undoubtedly try to create.

By page two there is some back story dump about Yuruks. Slowly, over 13 pages the circumstances of Leah's death emerge.

First thing said:

"Be quiet, or I'll slit your throat too."

This dialogue works at building up conflict and tension, so if there is more conflict like this, that is, to the point, then that's something to look forward to.

Nevertheless, I shan't be finding out.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Where Monsters Dwell by Jorgen Brekke

There are no monsters under the bed.

That doesn't sound very interesting. It would be more fun to read that there are monsters under the bed. The paragraph is about a pronoun who built a spaceship in his room that is wrecked and about a crazy person downstairs who might have heard the crashing to the floor. There is no obvious connection between the second paragraph and the opening line so we must continue to read this short prologue to see if a connection is made. At the end there is the statement:

There are no monsters under the bed. But there's one towering over it.

Presumably this is a person the boy (he's been upgraded from a mere pronoun) is afraid of. The prologue is effective as a scene unfolds, in which someone is attacking the boy and his mother. We are made to assume they are both slaughtered, so two more prologies are sacrificed at the beginning of a novel for dramatic effect. Personally, bloody prologues don't hook me.

Chapter 1:

Bergen, Norway, September 1528

The mendicant monk had heard few good things about Bergen and even fewer about Norway, the land where he was born, about which he had forgotten so much.

No surprise that the prologue and chapter 1 are in different time zones. A monk in an opening line of a horror/mystery novel attracts attention, but there is little else here that will hook. Having heard few good things about Bergen, is too vague to hook. What else can one expect with words like: things and so much?

First thing said:

"I am everywhere."

The killer says this in the prologue. Part 1 begins with a quote from Alan De Lille, ca. 1100 stating: God is an understandable sphere in which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. This suggests that whatever killed the two prologies was godlike?

There are no obvious cliches, there are scenes with conflict, there is little back story, yet the forward narrative is understandable, so this opening could receive a much higher rating. It's just that the bloody, violent prologue opening has been done so many times that it starts to bore and wear thin. It's becoming a cliche in its own right.

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

One Night in Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Prologue
June 1945

Just moments after the shots, as Serafima looks at the bodies of her schoolfriends, a feathery whiteness is already frosting their blasted flesh.

This whole paragraph tries to be clever with its deployment of the weather opening cliche, but it isn't fooling me, as evidenced in the second sentence.

It is like a coating of snow, but it's midsummer and she realizes it's pollen.

This causes me to pause and reflect: Is this opening paragraph about introducing dead prologies or is that merely a cover to tell us about the weather, which I'm beginning to think is a deep-seeded inclination in the human psyche when it comes to storytelling. By the way, it's cloudy at the time of writing this review and this reviewer is feeling the effects of the listless weather on his mood. I wrench at my tie in a futile effort to wiggle out of the conflict that is today's weather...my weather...my life.

The rest of the first paragraph:

It is like a coating of snow, but it's midsummer and she realizes it's pollen. Seeds of poplar are floating, bouncing and somersaulting through the air in random manoeuvres like an invasion of tiny alien spaceships. Muscovites call this 'summer snow.' That humid evening, Serafima struggles to breathe, struggles to see.

Forget about the dead schoolfriends - it's humid! Is this the conflict we're really supposed to be caring about? After all, it's what we can relate to more than dead schoolfriends. If one goes with the emphatic emphasis writing guideline (and of course there is no law that states one must), whatever a sentence or paragraph ends with should be what is most important. However, more than fifty percent of the opening paragraph is dedicated to descriptive weather than to the dead prologies, characters killed off in a prologue to hook bloodthirsty readers, usually in a gruesome and cliched sensational way involving dismemberment and explosions.

However, it's the figurative language that makes me giggle. It's like something I've read in some grade 7 homework assignment: The pollen is like invading space aliens? Of course, we all know what invading space aliens look like, right? So this image should be an easy one to reconstruct. I imagine a scene from Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!

The rest of the first page reveals Serafima's dilemma. She must testify, and she wishes she'd seen less and knew less. This leads to the only interesting question that's raised, which might hook the reader. Who are these children and why kill them, as these aren't just any children who've died. The problem Serafima is confronted with is what to tell and what to hide. Get it wrong and you lose your head. Which means, I assume with such a POV switch, that Serafima will be safe, but, you, the reader will die. So you better hope she gets it right.

Yet Serafima has a stake even higher than life and death: She's eighteen and in love.

Oh, my god, the hell this character must endure! First the bodies of dead schoolfriends, then the humidity, then testifying and now this! The absurdity of the hyperbole is mindbogglingly kitsch: "Love is more important than life and death!" she screamed from the mountain top as tempest winds whipped around her long golden hair that had been plucked from the golden threads of God's Codpiece.

Chapter 1:

Several weeks earlier

The best school in Moscow, thought Andrei Kurbsky on his first day at School 801 on Ostozhenka, and , by some miraculous blessing, I've just made it here.

Okay, this guy Andrei is thinking some stuff here but because the thinking isn't in italics it sounds like the end of that sentence which just so happens to also be the whole first paragraph is a POV switch. It's not, but you can see how easy it is to misconstrue the meaning. Wars have been fought over more childish misunderstandings and interpretations.

First thing said:

Seeds of poplar are floating...through the air...
like an invasion of tiny alien spaceships.

"These aren't just any dead children."

Despite the poor writing that lacks clarity, the opening line does attract attention in the form of young bodies. The rest of the prologue reveals the setting of post WWII Soviet Russia (it's 1945), which will interest many others.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Prophet of Bones by Ted Kosmatka

The Prophet set his nine-millimeter on the kitchen counter.

This is the first sentence and first paragraph. The opening line gets its own paragraph, one presumes, because the author thinks that this sentence is special, when in essence it is nothing more than a nickname putting down a gun in the kitchen. I mean just because there is a gun we are supposed to be hooked? The set up is so Hollywood (sorry Hollywood if I've offended thee) with a total lack of creativity that the only thing interesting about this line is that it can actually make someone read on. Perhaps opening with a gun is something that hooks patriotic Americans and Russians but for the rest of us, it's like, whatever.

He leaned forward bleeding hard into the sink, the only  sound a rhythmic tap of blood on stainless steel.

This second sentence and beginning of the second paragraph is somewhat incongruous. Mr. Prophet is bleeding hard in the first clause, but then only dripping in the second clause. When I first read bleeding hard I pictured the guy gushing blood. But drip, drip, drip is in no way as dramatic. Even if the droplets are dime size. But then again, what do I know, I've never been shot in the head. Yep, the Prophet is suffering from a head wound, yet can still turn on the tap and talk. Without being clear about the nature of the head wound, it's actually funny. Well, I laughed.

First thing said:

"My disciples, I knew you'd find me here."

Dialogue on the first page is nice. In fact, a scene like this on the first page encourages a reader to be pulled in. Creepy disciples watching the prophet make this scene rather weird in a pleasant way and one can't help but feel a sense of foreboding.

Then the Prophet takes off his shirt so the author can describe his chest and body, as if nothing in the story will make sense if I don't know this on page 2. Though to be fair, except for the lean and dark torso, a little hint of back story is insinuated by mentioning the scars and tattoos. Suddenly the Prophet looks like Danny Trejo.

Then many paragraphs start beginning like this:

The Prophet splashed cold water on his face...
The Prophet peeled loose his tattered sweatshirt...
The Prophet turned....
The Prophet shook his head.
The Prophet leaned back...
The Prophet wiped a runnel of blood from his face.
The Prophet sipped beer.
The Prophet didn't answer. 
The Prophet lowered his eyes.

All in the first three pages. There are more The Prophet does.... sentences on the final two pages of chapter 1, as well. The point I'm trying to make?  Monotonous sentence structure stands out.

I will give this a 50/50 pass because in all fairness the scene manages to hold my attention, despite the writing. However, I do start to lose interest when we get into characters talking about things the reader can't know anything about, dropping hints and insinuations designed to impel us to read on but are in point of fact, a little confusing.

Some say that a good story is 80% idea and 20% technique. But in this case only 5% technique is employed putting the story idea, caked in cliche, at a disadvantage. To be honest, I'm starting to have a hard time telling these kinds of novels apart. You know, the crime novels and thrillers that are printed out in the millions by the likes of Cussler, Baldacci, Dan Brown, Ted Bell, Lee Child, Robert Harris, Brad Meltzer and hundreds of others, many much worse. Am I the only one who thinks they could all have been written by one person? Or perhaps, graduates from one cliched school of writing?

On the cover there is a quote from Clive Cussler: A Masterwork...An eye-opening and page-turning read without parallel. Except this reads like every other book of it's genre. Personally, I'd sue someone if Clive Cussler's name was on the cover of my book, plugging it. Most readers can make up their own minds without reading graffiti on a cover.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Sniper's Honor by Stephen Hunter

Prologue
Ostfront
1942

It was a balmy November day in Stalingrad, 14 below, twelve feet of snow, near-blizzard conditions.

As this starts with weather, my initial urge is to fail it, banish the book back to the library shelf and troll YouTube comments. However, there are a couple things that attract my attention about this line, despite the weather. The use of sarcasm to establish some tone and the mention of Stalingrad. Most people are already aware of the battle that was the beginning of the end of Hitler and its brutality, so there isn't too much else to say. Setting is established with one word. Anyone interested it this plot of history will be hooked.

The next sentence is about weather too. However, from that point the story delves into details like Kfz 251's, T-34's and geography like Tauvinskaya and Smarkandskaya streets with healthy bouts of back story as a character is revealed - resume style. Nevertheless, the scene that unfolds is fascinating to read, and it's not long either, coming in at under six pages. It shows a German sniper preparing for a shot but he himself gets shot instead, which actually saves his life, as he is one of the last Germans to be airlifted out of there. The prologue ends by saying the sniper lived a long life, dying an old man with grandchildren, before adding: The sniper who shot him was the White Witch. We infer that this is a woman, as whoever it is, has a cascade of hair, bright as gold, reflecting in the sunlight. It's nice that at least women (or one woman) fighting in Stalingrad were issued shampoo and conditioner, to give them that shining, full-bodied look, that men would die for.

Chapter 1:

Outside Cascade
The Homestead
The Present

He was an old man in a dry month.

Surprise, surprise! Of course, the novel does not take place in the same time as the titillating prologue, so all those who were hoping for another epic Stalingrad battle novel, well...ha-ha to you. The only good thing about the opening sentence of this novel is that the line is short. Other than that, we have a pronoun and some weather.

First thing said:

"Not much time left, Gunther."

Even though the novel's title is simple in a non-creative way, it does tell us something about the story and that there will be something about the sniper's code and honor. So this title is important to establishing a hook.

Verdict: Fail

I suppose if one reads this genre there is a hook here. I'm tempted to read on. I liked the prologue, but beginning chapter 1 in another time and place, seriously puts me off.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

I've Got You Under My Skin by Mary Higgins Clark

Dr. Greg Moran was pushing three-old Timmy on the swing in the playground on East Fifteenth Street in Manhattan, not far from the apartment.

This is the first sentence and paragraph of the prologue. It is a short prologue of two pages and I skipped to the second page after reading this boring opening sentence to learn that another prologie dies in front of Timmy. At least there is a crime early on in this crime novel.

Chapter 1:

Laurie Moran looked out the window of her office on the twenty-fifth floor of 15 Rockefeller Center.

There certainly is a lot of effort to reveal the right addresses of the scenes in both these opening lines; nothing artistic mind you, just a GPS type announcement that;s supposed to help the reader navigate, though readers who know nothing about New York will not care what address these things are happening at. The opening paragraph of chapter 1 is rounded out with a weather report and skaters.

First thing said:

"Two-minute warning."

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Codex 632 by Jose Rodrigues Dos Santos

Four.

One word sentences almost always fail. I don't think I've come across any that hook. The only thing good about them is that they are so short they almost don't count and someone would have to be really anal retentive to stop reading a book after only one word. These one word openings are almost always a prelude and the real test is what the next sentence is.

The old historian couldn't know that he only had four minutes left to live.

Thus begins the ticking time bomb plot device, a usually effective and suspenseful device. The next paragraph begins:

The hotel elevator seemed to wait to trap him with wide-open doors.

I like the use of verbs in this sentence. Not the linking verb seem but wait and trap. these verbs draw the image that the elevator can be likened to the jaws of death. The paragraph then proceeds to describes the historian. The next paragraph is one word again:

Three.

Something happens and then:

Two.

You get the idea. This prologie (disposable characters that die in prologues) is running out of time, and we all know how that ends.

Chapter 1:

Had someone told Thomas Noronha, that morning, that the next few months would take him all over the world and into the unraveling of a five-hundred-year-old conspiracy, complete with stories of seafaring adventures during the Age of Discovery, royal espionage between the first two global superpowers, and the esoteric world of Kabbalah and the Knights Templar, he wouldn't have believed it.

This reads like the query letter pitch to a literary agent introducing a book the author is seeking representation for. And why not? It isn't merely preamble - hinting that there is a story, but instead tells us ahead of time what to expect, whetting our curious and selling the premise. It has all the key words: Kabbalah, Knights Templar, conspiracy, esoteric and espionage. People who like these Dan Brown words will not be able to resist.

First thing said:

"Well, good morning."

The first thing said is a fail, though, as it does not develop plot, character, conflict, tone, mood, setting, theme or world view - it's just a boring salutation.

Verdict: Pass Definte

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Black List by Brad Thor

Preface

On August 17, 1975, Senator Frank Church appeared on NBC's Meet the Press to discuss the results of his full-scale investigation into America's burgeoning intelligence capabilities.

A preface means history, back story and/or the inspiration behind the story - in short a black tie intro, with information that could easily be inserted elsewhere once I'm ready to care. However, because it is supposed to be interesting the author might be thinking that this could be a nice little true-to-life hook, even if it is out of context and out of chronological order with the actual forward narrative. Too bad. Little do some authors know that a preface hook does not keep a reader reading. It's preamble. It's like someone coming out before the movie begins and starting to blabber. How many people actually enjoy that? Not many, so authors will just have to hook all over again. Most don't bother - thinking that aspect of their work is done.

What's worse, this preface is a little on the didactic side. You can skip it. Trust me - you can skip it.

Prologue

Pentagon City
Present Day

There were a lot of places in which Caroline Romero could envision being murdered - a dark alley, a parking lot, even a nature preserve -  but a shopping mall in broad daylight wasn't one of them.

God, when is this book going to start? What's with the introductions? Anyway, this prologue indulges in several pages just to kill a prologie. At least that's what we assume. The writer leaves it hanging. Cliffhanger endings don't hook, just like being vague does not hook. But this isn't really a cliffhanger ending, it's a slithering-into-the-fog ending, whisked away by an imploding plot.

Chapter 1:

Rural Virginia
Friday
Forty-eight hours later

Kurt Schroeder glanced down at his iPhone while his Nissan subcompact crunched across the estate's pebbled motor court.

Two clichés for the price of one. A phone and a car. Except in this case there is no signal, so the phone call opening is impotent. But the intent is clear. If there's a phone, it gets the phone call opening cliché award. The phone doesn't have to be ringing or buzzing or even being held in a hand, it just needs to be there, teasing the reader: "Oh, my God, there's a phone!"

Listing the setting particulars as subheadings to a chapter rather than showing it is (in my book of writing rules) a sign of bad or lazy writing - take your pick. The rest of the pages ponder the mysteries of a novel opening without the luxury of having a phone signal before launching into back story. So the forward narrative of a man in a vehicle with a useless phone (oh, the horror) stops and we back up before anything interesting happens. How can that be anything but a total and utter fail?

First thing said:

"Where have you been?"

The two main purposes of dialogue (especially in the beginning) are either to move the plot forward or to reveal character. This does neither.

I'm tempted to say something witty about the title for my review, but I've got better things to do.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Corporal's Wife by Gerald Seymour

Prologue

He was already awake.

He's in bed. He hears something, a whimpering, a shout.

He was Johnny.

Except he's not. What follows is back story and other "fun" trivia facts about Mr. Pronoun alias Johnny. After a couple pages it's revealed that Mr. Pronoun is in a prison. But the short of it is: this prologie dies.

The writing on the first page stumbles a bit as the forward narrative is constantly interrupted to provide context, but only serves to slow things down. Other than that, the writing is fine and the forward narrative manages to draw one in.

Chapter 1:

He was sitting on the bed and the girl, in front of him, knelt on the floor.

So Mr. Pronoun is in bed, presumably a different bed (and a different Mr. Pronoun) from the one showcased in the prologue. As the pages unravel, the forward narrative is constantly interrupted, and conflicts that hook have a hard time breaking through. Also, I wouldn't use commas to offset in front of him, but that's just me.

First thing said:

"Don't let them see your fear or they'll have won."

How many times have you heard this cliche?

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Bones of the Lost by Kathy Reichs

Heart pounding, I crawled toward the brick angling down to form the edge of the recess.

Thus begins a rather intense conflict-riddled scene of a chase, though it's a little confusing at first. It's a scene filled with hate, violence and lots of cursing. No surprise that it's a prologue, which are usually violent and out of proportion to the rest of the story. But does a scene of a sadistic maniac repeatedly punching a girl senseless before being shot hook? What kind of person reading this would say, "Yeah, I'm getting into this!"

Chapter 1:

I've been held prisoner before.

The first paragraph ends with: But this captivity exceeded all others for pure physical pain.

It turns out, the narrator is not being held prisoner on some lonely farm with Robbie the Rodent Rapist Redneck, but is in a courthouse. In other words, this opening employs the: Ha-ha, made you look hook.

First thing said:

Insults, cursing and violent threats.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Please Don't Tell by Elizabeth Adler

It was a winter afternoon, and a stormy sky was looming.

Congratulations! The line: It was a dark and stormy night... has been ousted. Now, I know what you traditionalists are going to say: You can't improve on the dark and stormy night hook, but open your minds people, this line includes the season and suggests bad weather - anticipation rather than realization. Besides looming is such a suggestive word.

What follows is a pronoun sitting in a vehicle parked in the darkest part of a parking lot. He's having chest pains. As expected, Mr. Pronoun kills a prologie in the usual sadistic run of the mill shocking and violent manner. Yawn. At a certain point one must ask oneself: How much prologie blood must be split to satisfy the lust for fictional blood? For me, none is enough. However, the weather gets the final say. Take that Mr. Pronoun, you insignificant maniac.

Chapter 1:

It had started out as an ordinary morning for Fen Dexter.

This sentence implies that despite the ordinary mundane beginning, the story will get better, maybe even extraordinary; it's a promise. Until then, the writer proceeds to explain the average ordinary morning, which naturally begins in bed, followed by a back story dump that is so conveniently organized chronologically by ex-husband that it would make any grade 7 English teacher weep for joy.

First thing said:

"Elaine."

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

All the dying that summer began with the death of a child, a boy with golden hair and thick glasses, killed on the railroad tracks outside New Bremen, Minnesota, sliced into pieces by a thousand tons of steel speeding across the prairie toward South Dakota.

Another prologie (disposable characters in prologues) bites the dust and in the standard ghastly manner. Yet there is the foreshadowing of bigger problems and more death to come and I don't know about you, but my curiosity is swelling.

Paragraph 2 reminds us again:

It was the summer in which death, in visitation, assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.

Sounds like it's time to get out of Minnesota! The prologue is over before you realize it- it's short at one page.

Chapter 1:

Moonlight pooled on the bedroom floor.

What follows is some uninteresting exposition about bugs, hot weather, 1961, more heat, fans and a brother.

First thing said:

"Yes?"

Why can't the first thing that's said in books nowadays mean something rather than be one-syllable words? Nevertheless, this gets 2.5 stars based on the promises made in the prologue.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Deadline by Sandra Brown

The first hail of bullets was fired from the house shortly after daybreak at six fifty-seven.

That is all there is to the first paragraph of the prologue. For some reason a gun fight doesn't hook the way it used to. It's almost as bad as opening with the weather, a hail of rain.

It was a gloomy morning.

But then it usually is when there's a gun fight involved. By the end of the prologue we have five dead prologies.


Chapter 1:

"What's with the hair?"
"That's how you greet a man returning from the war?"

Dialogue by persons unknown begins chapter 1. Names gush forth soon thereafter but names do not a character make.

First thing said:

"Hey, Turk, grab me a Coke while you're over there, will ya?"

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Haven by Kay Hooper

In the first few minutes of Catherine Talbert's escape, she did her very best to be as quiet as possible.

This is the prologue. There is an author's note at the beginning explaining some things about this series, but I ignored that. I'm interested in story, not a welcome-ladies-and-gentlemen introduction. Reading on a bit, we discover that yet another character in the world of fiction is escaping a crazed lunatic in a prologue reserved for the purpose. I like to call these characters prologies in honor of perogies. They are like the red shirts in Star Trek - disposable, and a writer can feel free to do unspeakable horrors to them, and all for the benefit of readers, to thrust us into the book quickly. That's right, today's reader, so it seems, wants blood and death early on and only once the thirst for blood has been satisfied, can they settle into chapter 1. We have come a long way since the Roman death-sport and bear baiting days.

So Catherine runs for a bit, climbs for a bit, then jumps for a bit and then dies for a bit. Despite the generic nature of this prologue (brief, violent, contextually confusing), it does raise some questions, a condition necessary for being hooked - but after you've seen this plot device a million times (okay, 32 times in two months), it gets monotonous. What I like about the opening line is that the character is trying to be as quiet as possible. I like quiet people, and a dilemma presents itself: How to escape without making a sound?

Chapter 1:

Emma Rayburn shot bolt upright in bed, at first conscious of nothing except her heart pounding and the suffocating sense of being unable to breathe.

Ah, a book that begins in bed with a nightmare, as we learn a bit further along. But before we scoff in judgement, there is some back story on page 2 that reveals that this character likes to dream about girls and women dying - it's her thing, and so we realize that we've been teleported into the realms of the paranormal thriller genre. It was kind of the author to slip this info in early or a new reader might stop reading without ever knowing anything about the premise - unless they'd read the author's note.

For myself, the only question this line raises is what does it mean to be conscious of nothing but a beating heart and a suffocating sense. Wouldn't the character also be aware that they are aware, or is that asking too much from today's modern brain? In any case, the line reads more like a movie shot. In a book it sounds melodramatic and overwritten.

First thing said:

"It's okay, girl."

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht