Book Beginnings on Friday

My Friday Post: The Accordionist by Fred Vargas

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

The book I’m featuring this week is The Accordionist by Fred Vargas, a book I reserved at the library and collected yesterday. It’s the third book in her Three Evangelists series.

The Accordionist (Three Evangelists)

It begins:

Paris, July, 1997

‘PARIS KILLER STRIKES AGAIN! SEE PAGE 6.’

Louis Kehlweiler threw the newspaper down on the table. He’d seen enough and felt no urge to turn to page 6. Later maybe, when the whole business had calmed down, he’d cut out the article and file it.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

30879-friday2b56 These are the rules:

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

‘I want to know what the cops think about these two murders, what lines they’re following, and how far they’ve got.’

Description (Amazon)

When two Parisian women are murdered in their homes, the police suspect young accordionist Clément Vauquer. As he was seen outside both of the apartments in question, it seems like an open-and-shut case.

Desperate for a chance to prove his innocence, Clément disappears. He seeks refuge with old Marthe, the only mother figure he has ever known, who calls in ex-special investigator Louis Kehlweiler.

Louis is soon faced with his most complex case yet and he calls on some unconventional friends to help him. He must show that Clément is not responsible and solve a fiendish riddle to find the killer…

~~~

I’ve been looking forward to reading The Accordionist since I finished Dog Will Have His Day, the second book in Fred Vargas’ Three Evangelists series. I love her books. She writes such quirky crime fiction, with eccentric characters and intricate plots that I love and find so difficult to solve.

What about you? Does it tempt you or would you stop reading?

My Friday Post: The House Between Tides by Sarah Maine

The book I’m featuring this week is The House Between Tides by Sarah Maine, a book I’m planning to read soon. It’s the story of a crumbling estate in the wilds of Scotland, set in 1910 and 2010.

The House Between Tides

It begins:

2010

The first bone he had dismissed as dead sheep. There’d been others – ribs decaying amidst rabbit droppings and debris from the collapsing ceilings, or bleached vertebrae. But the next one was a long bone, and he held it, considering a moment, then rocked back on his heels.

This was no sheep.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

30879-friday2b56 These are the rules:

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

And she had been drawn to a painting which hung in a corner, away from the others, a painting she now recognised as the view from the foreshore in front of the house. It showed two ill-defined figures walking across the strand, through contrasting patches of light, shadow and mist, walking in parallel, slightly apart from each other, and somehow clearly a man and a woman. But were they coming together or drifting apart?

Description (Amazon)

Following the death of her last living relative, Hetty Deveraux leaves London and her strained relationship behind for Muirlan, her ancestral home in Scotland – now in ruins. As Hetty dives headfirst into the repairs, she discovers a shocking secret protected by the house for a hundred years.

With only whispered rumours circulating among the local villagers and a handful of leads to guide her, Hetty finds the power of the past is still affecting her present in startling ways.

~~~

Sarah Maine is a new-to-me author, so I’m not sure what to expect, but The House Between Tides is described by Kirkus Reviews as ‘ A compelling debut which deftly blends classic suspense with modern themes.’ The reviewer in the Independent is quoted on the front cover – ‘An echo of Daphne du Maurier‘, so I’m hoping I’ll like it.

What about you? Does it tempt you or would you stop reading?

My Friday Post: Fire in the Thatch by E C R Lorac

The book I’m featuring this week is Fire in the Thatch by E C R Lorac, which is the book I’m planning to read next. It’s set as the Second world War is drawing to a close, but it was not published until 1946.

It begins:

Colonel St Cyres stepped out of the French window on to the terrace and drew in a deep breath of frosty air, conscious of the exhilaration of a glorious December morning. He always felt better out of doors. In the open air the worries and irritations of life seemed less immediate, and he felt that he lost a burden when he closed the window behind him.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

30879-friday2b56 These are the rules:

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

56%:

Well, the plain fact is this: gossip around Mallory Fitzjohn is saying that Gressingham was out in his car on the night of the fire, and that he’s denied the fact.

Description (Amazon)

The Second World War is drawing to a close. Nicholas Vaughan, released from the army after an accident, takes refuge in Devon – renting a thatched cottage in the beautiful countryside at Mallory Fitzjohn. Vaughan sets to work farming the land, rearing geese and renovating the cottage. Hard work and rural peace seem to make this a happy bachelor life.

On a nearby farm lives the bored, flirtatious June St Cyres, an exile from London while her husband is a Japanese POW. June’s presence attracts fashionable visitors of dubious character, and threatens to spoil Vaughan’s prized seclusion.

When Little Thatch is destroyed in a blaze, all Vaughan’s work goes up in smoke – and Inspector Macdonald is drafted in to uncover a motive for murder.

~~~

I enjoyed Bats in the Belfry by E C R Lorac, so I’m hoping I’ll enjoy this one too, another case for Chief Inspector Macdonald of Scotland Yard.

What about you? Does it tempt you or would you stop reading?

My Friday Post: The Kappillan of Malta by Nicholas Monsarrat

Yesterday I realised that I should be reading The Kappillan of Malta by Nicholas Monsarrat in time for the next book club meeting, so I started reading it.

The Kappillan of Malta

It begins:

The man in the bar of the Phoenicia Hotel, by the main gate of Valletta, gave me more mis-information, in the space of two hours, than even six gins and tonics could really justify. He was a fattish, pinkish man in bulging blue shorts; a man on a long lazy holiday, but discontented none the less.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

30879-friday2b56 These are the rules:

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

Father Salvatore had returned to his breviary, but the voices, with their burden of fear and despair – a burden which, it must be said, often seemed wholly selfish, with a certain pleasurable interest in the blood of others added to it – came between him and the holy words, and he found himself listening instead of reading. What could be done with a crew like this?

Description (Amazon)

A classic novel set in the siege of Malta 1940-1942 from the bestselling author of The Cruel Sea

Father Salvatore was a simple, lumbering priest, a Kappillan serving the poor Valetta, when war came out of the blue skies to pound the island to dust.

Now amid the catacombs discovered by a chance bomb, he cared for the flood of homeless, starving, frightened people who sought shelter from the death that fell unceasingly from the sky.

His story, and the story of Malta, is told in superbly graphic pictures of six days during the siege. Each of those days brought forth from the Kappillan a message of inspiration to keep them going – the legendary tales of six mighty events of Malta’s history which shone through the centuries and gathered them together in a fervent belief in their survival.

~~~

So far, I’m rather taken by this book with Monsarrat’s description of Malta – a place I’ve never visited.

What about you? Does it tempt you or would you stop reading?

My Friday Post: Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer

I know I shouldn’t start another book just yet as I’m in the middle of three but this morning I couldn’t resist dipping into Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer. It looks so good.

Rubbernecker

It begins:

Dying is not as easy as it looks in the movies.

In the movies, a car skids on ice. It slews across the road, it teeters on the edge of the cliff.

It drops; it tumbles; the doors come off; it crumples and arcs, crumples and arcs – and finally stops at a tree, wheels up like a smoking turtle.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

30879-friday2b56 These are the rules:

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

I snap out of the cloud and get a bit frantic, which is difficult to do when you can’t move or make a sound. I try to open my eyes. No lying doggo now! But they won’t open.

Description (Goodreads):

Life is strange for Patrick Fort; being a medical student with Asperger’s Syndrome doesn’t come without its challenges–and that’s before he is faced with solving a possible murder. Because the body Patrick is examining in anatomy class is trying to tell him all kinds of things. And now he must stay out of danger long enough to unravel the mystery–while he dissects his own evidence.

~~~

I don’t see how I can stop reading this!

What about you? Would you stop? Have you read it – or are you planning to read it?

My Friday Post: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

This morning I have just started to read Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson.

It begins:

Major Pettigrew was still upset about the phone call from his brother’s wife and so he answered the doorbell without thinking.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

30879-friday2b56 These are the rules:

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

‘We may have to be a bit more bound by the rule book these days, but you can be sure that Tewkesbury and Teale will always try to do the best for you.’ The Major thought that perhaps after all this was settled he would do as he should have done in the first place and find himself another solicitor.

Description (Amazon):

Major Ernest Pettigrew is perfectly content to lead a quiet life in the
sleepy village of Edgecombe St Mary, away from the meddling of the
locals and his overbearing son. But when his brother dies, the Major
finds himself seeking companionship with the village shopkeeper, Mrs
Ali. Drawn together by a love of books and the loss of their partners,
they are soon forced to contend with irate relatives and gossiping
villagers. The perfect gentleman, but the most unlikely hero, the Major
must ask himself what matters most: family obligation, tradition or
love?

Funny, comforting and heart-warming, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand proves that sometimes, against all odds, life does give you a second chance.

~~~

A change for me from crime fiction and historical fiction, I’m hoping this will be a good choice.

What do you think? Have you read it – or are you planning to read it?

My Friday Post: A Dying Note by Ann Parker

This week’s book is A Dying Note by Ann Parker, her latest book in the Silver Rush Mysteries, which was published on 3 April 2018. I’ve just finished it, so my review will up soon.

It begins:

Not my hands!

Throat crushed, blood gurgled, words choked so they screamed only in the mind.

A dramatic opening to this novel set in 1881.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

30879-friday2b56 These are the rules:

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

56%:

Inez allowed herself to consider what life might have been like if she, her then-husband Mark Stannert, and their business partner, Abe Jackson, had come all the way to San Francisco as originally planned. Perhaps they would have built a drinking and gaming establishment to capture some of the fortune from gambling fever that clutched the golden city.

But that was not what happened. Seduced by the possibilities in the silver mining boom town of Leadville they had lingered in the city in the clouds, then settled in.

Description (Goodreads):

It’s autumn of 1881, and Inez Stannert, still the co-owner of Leadville, Colorado’s Silver Queen saloon, is settled in San Francisco with her young ward, Antonia Gizzi. Inez has turned her business talents to managing a music store, hoping to eventually become an equal partner in the enterprise with the store’s owner, a celebrated local violinist.

Inez’s carefully constructed life for herself and Antonia threatens to tumble about her ears when the badly beaten body of a young musician washes up on the filthy banks of San Francisco’s Mission Creek canal.

~~~

This is a fascinating historical mystery – I loved it.

What do you think? Have you read it – or are you planning to read it?