Six Years by Harlan Coben

I sat in the back pew and watched the only woman I would ever love marry another man.

This has a kind of conflict that most people can relate to. I feel for the guy since I'd had a similar experience -  though she wasn't the only woman I'd ever loved.

What follows is a description of Natalie, the only woman he'd ever love. It's a scene with enough awkwardness to keep people reading, as just about everyone has been on one end or the other of unrequited love. However, the pages start to drag as the pathetic nature of rejection and self-torment rambles on until it stops abruptly with the word:

Enough.

Yes, enough; let's get on with the mystery.

First thing said:

"Hello, Jake."

Very nondescript dialogue opening. Hopefully characters will have more to say than mere superfluous chit-chat.

Verdict: Pass

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Cage of Bones by Tania Carver

It was a house of secrets.

Does anyone know the word cliche in Gaelic? On the surface this sentence hooks, but when we stop and think about it, how can it? It is too broad, too general and could mean quite literally anything. It is cliche because it brings to mind every dark old house ever used by Hollywood from the 1930's on. That motif has been done to death and for good reason as it always seems to appeal to the next generation unaware the wheel has already been reinvented.

Ultimately, what we have here is a setting of sorts, and no conflict, as secrets aren't in themselves conflicts.

The rest of the first paragraph:

Dark secrets, old secrets.

And the next paragraph:

Bad secrets.

I hear my big brother's voice whispering underneath a bed sheet as he tries to figure out how best to scare me. I'm giggling.

First thing said:

"What you waitin' for?"

This author believes in the power of incomplete and incoherent sentence structure, which is really a hackneyed attempt at soliciting emotion via punctuation. Here are a few in no particular order:

Felt it, sensed it.
A solid shadow, deeper than black.
And that was where Cam came in.
Walked on.
Tried to get hold of himself.
And it was old.
Then the fence.
A horror film monster.
Stopped.
And beyond all that was the house itself.
Or nowhere. 

Maybe this is about getting revenge on a mean grade one teacher.

Last line of the book:

The tightrope holding.

Verdict: Fail (yawn)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

It is so appropriate to color hope yellow, like that sun we seldom saw.

It took me a second to figure out what the hell this sentence means. I think I got it: Hope should be the color of the sun because like the sun, they rarely saw any hope. Yellow is also the color of corny. This sentence paints a rather simplistically childish picture of bleakness, suitable for the opening of a horror episode of Sesame Street. It also suggests confinement, though I might be inferring too much.

Despite the critical analysis, in the end, it is exposition. Perhaps that's all life really is - exposition. Although it indicates conflict, the opening line doesn't state directly or even hint inadvertently what that conflict might be. Talk about obstinate plotting techniques.

After that prologue we have chapter one:

Truly, when I was very young, way back in the Fifties, I believed all of life would be like one long and perfect summer day.

The writer is stalling now, dragging it out by beginning with an adverb. One wonders how much longer we have to listen to the narrator brooding nostalgically before we get to a story worthy problem. It's bland and a shame to waste any more time writing this review.

I know the premise behind this book and the idea intrigues. I saw the movie as a kid and never looked at my mother the same way again - that's right, you can't trust anyone, not even your own mother. However, I've picked this book up on three different occasions and can never get past chapter two. The narrator is just too self-absorbed to be interesting. I want to knuckle slap him or her or whatever it is that's telling this story. After all, I'm just a reader, not the narrator's bloody psychotherapist.

First thing said:

"Take off your boots in the foyer."

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Selected Stories by H.P. Lovecraft

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

In honor of H.P. Lovecraft and it being Halloween and all, I thought I would review the opening sentences of several of his stories. As it's been a while since I've read any of his work, I wasn't sure what to expect. His writing style is unique though considered by many to be overly verbose and in some weird way, unnatural, at least by today's standards. However, no one can deny the man's imagination and ability to print fear. I was surprised by how well he begins his stories, always a sign, in my book, of a great writer.


The Outsiders
Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.

This hooks on an emotional level. There is a sense of foreboding and hopelessness attached to this sentence. It is disturbing on another level as well - that of a troubled childhood, a childhood filled with fear. The look of fear on a child's face is without a doubt one of the more troubling images out there.

Yet it's far from being his best; it lacks a concrete problem.

Verdict: Pass (3 stars)

Pickman's Model
You needn't think I'm crazy, Eliot - plenty of others have queerer prejudices than this.

This line raises a question or two. It introduces a character and it suggests conflict, as if the narrator and Eliot are having an argument. And what is this queer prejudice?

It's a nice lead in but not really a hook that forces the reader to read on.

Verdict: Pass (barely 2.5 stars)

The Silver Key
When Randolph Carter was thirty he lost the key of the gate of dreams.

This hooks as it raises a question: there is a key to the gate of dreams? There is a gate of dreams? It suggests any number of pleasant or unpleasant possibilities. Is the gate open or locked? What nightmares could come gushing forth, or what is being held back?

As well, losing something in the opening line offers conflict.

Verdict: Cool (4 stars)

The Rats in the Walls
On July 16, 1923, I moved into Exham Priory after the last workman had finished his labors.

This offers nothing, no foreboding or scary image, no conflict, no disturbing idea or thought. Just the date and a place. Beginning with the date is just a mathematical way of saying: Once upon a time...

Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

The Music of Erich Zann
I have examined maps of the city with the greatest care, yet have never  again found the Rue d'Auseil.

A missing street that's seemingly vanished into thin air hooks. It suggests another worldly realm, in a Twilight Zone sort of way. We've all had those, I could have sworn... moments.

Verdict: Cool (4 stars)

The Call of Cthulhu
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

This is a frightening thought and one of the reasons why H.P. Lovecraft is so well-loved. He manages to scare intellectually with ideas rather than with violence, blood, or creepy imagery alone. Not understanding is scary, and Lovecraft makes it a personal revelation, something the reader is forced to identify with.

Verdict: Cool (4 stars)

The Haunter of the Dark
Cautious investigators will hesitate to challenge the common belief that Robert Blake was killed by lightning, or by some profound nervous shock derived from an electrical discharge.

A little mystery that hooks in its own quaint little way. It introduces a problem that we assume will resolve by the end: How did this man die? But there are just a couple adjectives too many in this sentence for me to stomach. Adjectives are like salt and give my brain indigestion.

Verdict: Pass (3 stars)

The Dunwich Horror
When a traveller in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of the Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean's Corners he comes upon a lonely and curious country.

The only part of this sentence that hooks is the end: lonely and curious, but it really isn't enough. It would be better if a hint of what is curious was mentioned rather than telling the reader in general terms, which is boring.

Verdict: Fail (2 stars)

The Thing on the the Doorstep
It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to show by this statement that I am not his murderer.

It is not really the fact that the narrator has shot his best friend six times in the head that hooks, it is the fact that he shot his best friend six times in the head and insists he did not murder him that hooks. It seems like a paradox of sorts and raises lots of questions. By far this is the best opening line from those I've picked to review.

Verdict: Coolest  (4.5-stars)

Happy Halloween  -  have fun being scared.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Spilled Blood by Brian Freeman

Prologue

Hobbled by a flat tire, Ashlynn's fire-orange Mustang convertible limped to a stop on the main street of the abandoned farm town.

What a weird sentence. Hobbled is the past participle form of the verb which in this case indicates passive voice, not wrong, mind you, just not really right either. Can a person be hobbled by something? Hey, Dad, Tommy hobbled me again!

You need to think it out for a second. (I took less than that though). Hobble and limp are synonyms so I suppose we should be lucky he didn't write: Limped by a flat tire, because then the problem becomes obvious.

The personification is funny, too. A car limping onto the main street of a farm town. I have an image of a cartoon, something like Susie the Car, though she's blue.

I've never heard a rural town called a farm town. It makes me think of a town with a series of farms on the main street. Having been once rural myself, I have heard the term farming town. I assume farm town is some local expression, though when I google "farm town", I only get a plethora of computer games.

The next paragraph describes said farm town. You don't need to read it if you have imagination enough to imagine what a ruined ghost town would look like. In fact, it's better if you don't read the description, since you'll understand the scene better by not reading it. It's almost midnight, and the protagonist (it's that person's POV) is able to see little details like dirty shards of glass in the gravel. No matter how bright the moon is, moonlight doesn't shine as brightly as the sun at high noon. Even at high noon, who would notice dirty glass in gravel? This isn't the only example of descriptive incongruities in this so far (and I hate to contradict Lisa Gardner's plug at the back of the book, but...) very non-gripping and non-moving thriller. Though, so far it is shocking - for a grammatician, which me ain't.

Chapter one:

Christopher Hawk drove west on Highway 7 into the emptiness of rural Minnesota, leaving civilization behind him with each mile away from the city.

Christopher Hawk? What a name. It's only slightly better than Steve Stifler or Tugg Speedman and slightly worse than Buck Rogers.

Then there is the second part of this sentence: ...leaving civilization behind him with each mile away from the city. The author is abusing the usage of "away", an adverb which means: from this or that place, or in or to another place or direction, or toward another direction, and it modifies a verb. The problem is there is no verb "away" can modify in the above clause. So it sounds like each mile is away from the city? You can be a mile away from the city but each mile can not really be away from the city. Well, technically they can be away: This mile is away from the city. I hope that doesn't make sense to you. It should be: ...with each mile Hawk drives away from the city.

I'd just delete the delinquent, offending word "away".  In any case, the phrase is awkward, and the sentences don't get better with practice, as shown in the next one:

Staring at the horizon between his windshield wipers, he could have sworn the world was flat, and he hoped there was a sign ahead to warn him before he sped off the edge of the earth.

...horizon between his windshield wipers...is speaking figuratively or literally? Take your pick. It sounds like the horizon is literally between the wipers, but that's not possible. It must be speaking figuratively; though, in a sense if you wrote the sentence with clarity, the horizon is between the wipers, though off in the distance from them. The sentence is written in two-dimensional terms when it needs to be in three-dimensional terms, so to speak. So this sentence is not quite literal and not quite figurative. What is it then? Figurlitlively?

And unless he's hallucinating, why would Hawk hope there is a sign up ahead warning him about the edge of the earth? Or is this supposed to be a joke?

By paragraph two the writer succumbs to his skill level as a writer and describes the weather with expressions like bumpy clouds and swollen ditches. How does a ditch get swollen, that is, bigger than it was, when in fact, the water is overflowing or swelling out of it? When a pot overflows, we don't say the pot is swollen.

Of course throughout these openings we have no conflict (except for a limping car) and little characterization (except for a cross-eyed dweeb with no depth perception). Tone? Uh-uh, unless you want to count the horrible attempts at figurative gymnastic attempts at bad poetic poetry, which I literally mean figuratively.

First thing said:

"Hello?"

Verdict: Epic Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

A Fistful of Collars by Spencer Quinn

"Heard you drove another one off a cliff."

Which is wrong; the car was blown up, as we learn on the next page. The next sentences are as follows:

He spat a thin brown stream of chewing tobacco into an empty paint can, or maybe not that empty. Yellow paint, the yellow of egg yolks, now with a brown swirl in the middle: there's all kinds of beauty in life.

A weird image and rather gross, followed by a strange conclusion on the reasoning of life. Brown spit in a yellow paint can is not where I'd go looking for beauty. A person would have to be on some pretty powerful meds to go along with that one. Christopher would have freaked out reading this. Nevertheless, tone is established, though off the top of my head, it sounds like the beginning of a macho western, which, if the cover and blurb are any indication, is as it should be.

This gets 2.5 stars for the opening line and paragraph that establishes tone and  mood. It does attract attention, but the opening line is not an honest hook as it ends up being just two people gabbing on about false rumor. In other words the hook is in the telling of what the story is not. It's all set up, and I don't like being set up.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

Preface

I have often reflected upon the strange series of circumstances that led me to my long association with one of the most singular and remarkable figures of my age.

So begins Watson, introducing none other than Sherlock Holmes - a name that hooks just about anyone interested in a good mystery. The question is, is Sherlock Holmes safe in the hands of any writer other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Many have tried, in fact there seems to be an endless legion of writers writing Sherlock Holmes' stories. I have not been much interested in them, but if anyone is qualified to write a Sherlock Holmes' story, it is Mr. Horowitz. I thoroughly enjoy watching his adaptations of Poirot with David Suchet.

Plus, this beginning arouses some curiosity: What are these strange circumstances?

First thing said:

"Influenza is unpleasant," Sherlock Holmes remarked, "but you are right in thinking that, with your wife's help, the child will recover soon."


Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht