Category: Friday 56

The Unicorn: Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret9 Comments

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. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch is one of the books I’ll be reading soon. It’s one of my TBRs, a book I bought in a secondhand bookshop in Old Melrose in the Scottish Borders in 2014. It’s a book I’d nearly forgotten, double-shelved at the back of one of my bookcases.

The book begins with the strange conversation:

‘How far away is it?’

‘Fifteen miles’.

‘Is there a bus?’

‘There is not.’

‘Is there a taxi or a car I can hire in the village?’

‘There is not.’

‘Then how am I to get there?’

‘You might hire a horse hereabouts’, someone suggested after a silence.

‘I can’t ride a horse’, she said in exasperation, ‘and in any case there’s my luggage’.

They stared at her with quiet dreamy curiosity.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

She had never felt quite like this before, alone in her own mind; and yet not quite alone, for somewhere in the big darkness something was haunting her.

Description from Amazon UK

When Marian Taylor takes the post of governess at Gaze castle, remote house on a beautiful but desolate coast, she finds herself confronted with many strange mysteries. What kind of crime or catastrophe in the past still keeps the house under a brooding spell? And is her employer Hannah an innocent victim, a guilty woman, a lunatic, or a witch?

If you have read this book, what did you think?

The Crow’s Inn Tragedy: Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

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. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

One of the books I’m currently reading is The Crow’s Inn Tragedy by Annie Haynes, the third Inspector Furnival Mystery. Originally published in 1927 and republished by Dean Street Press in 2015.

The book begins:

The offices of Messrs Babcombe and Turner took up the whole of the first floor of the corner house of Crow’s Inn Square. Babcome and Turner was one of the oldest firms in London. Their offices were dingy, not to say grimy-looking.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

‘By the way, I come into some more money when Aunt Madeleine dies. You will be expecting me to murder her next! You had something left you too. You may have done it to get that!

Description from Amazon UK

“I cannot understand why Mr. Bechcombe apparently offered no resistance. His hand-bell, his speaking-tube, the telephone—all were close at hand. It looks as though he had recognized his assassin and had no fear of him.”
The corner house of Crow’s Inn Square was the most dignified set of solicitors’ chambers imaginable. But this monument to law and order nonetheless becomes the scene of murder – when the distinguished lawyer Mr. Bechcombe, despite giving strict instructions not to be disturbed, is strangled in his own office.

Inspector Furnival of Scotland Yard has to wrestle with fiendish clues, unearth priceless gems and tangle with a dangerous gang before he can solve this case, his third and final golden age mystery. Originally published in 1927, this new edition is the first printed in over 80 years, and features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

If you have read this book, what did you think?

The Black Loch by Peter May: Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

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. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

The book I’m currently reading is The Black Loch by Peter May, the fourth book in May’s Lewis Trilogy. I’ve read and loved the first three books. So I was keen to read it, and so far (I’ve read 45%) it’s living up to my expectations.

The book begins with a Prologue:

The sun set some time ago. Although it is not yet dark enough, somehow for murder.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

‘Did I ever tell you about the whaling boy?’

He never had.

‘You know what a whale is, Finn?’

‘Of course!’

‘Well there was a time when we killed them all over the planet. Hundreds and thousands of them.’

Description from Amazon:

A MURDER

The body of eighteen-year-old TV personality Caitlin is found abandoned on a remote beach at the head of An Loch Dubh – the Black Loch – on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis. A swimmer and canoeist, it is inconceivable that she could have drowned.

A SECRET

Fin Macleod left the island ten years earlier to escape its memories. When he learns that his married son Fionnlagh had been having a clandestine affair with the dead girl and is suspected of her murder, he and Marsaili return to try and clear his name.

A RECKONING

But nothing is as it seems, and the truth of the murder lies in a past that Fin would rather forget, and a tragedy at the cages of a salmon farm on East Loch Roag, where the tense climax of the story finds its resolution.

If you have read this book, what did you think?

Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark: Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

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. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark is a book I’ve had since 2017, when I bought it from Barter Books in Alnwick, one of my favourite secondhand bookshops. One of my favourite books is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, so I was hoping to love this book too. I did enjoy it, but not as much as Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

The book begins:

One day in the middle of the twentieth century I sat in an old graveyard which had not been demolished, in the Kensington area of London, when a young policeman stepped off the path and came over to me.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 55-56:

Several people turned round to look at Edwina as she spoke with her high cry. People often turned round to stare at her painted wizened face, her green teeth, the raised, red-blood fingernail accompanied by her shrieking voice, the whole wrapped up to the neck in luxurious fur. Edwina was over ninety and might die at any time, as she did about six years later. My dear, dear Solly lived into the seventies of this century, when I was far away.

Description from Amazon:

A funny and clever novel about art and reality and the way they imitate each other, from the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. With an introduction by Mark Lawson.

Would-be novelist Fleur Talbot works for the snooty Sir Quentin Oliver at the Autobiographical Association, whose members are at work on their memoirs. When her employer gets his hands on Fleur’s novel-in-progress, mayhem ensues when its scenes begin coming true.

If you have read this book, what did you think?

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley: Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

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. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie caught my eye one day as I was browsing the bookshelves in Barter Books in Alnwick, one of my favourite secondhand bookshops. It’s the first of the Flavia de Luce Mystery novels.

The book begins:

It was as black in the closet as old blood. They had shoved me in and locked the door.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

Daphne had described to me the effects of tetanus: one scratch from an old auto wheel and I’d be foaming at the mouth, barking like a dog and falling to the ground in convulsions at the sight of water.

Description from Amazon:

England 1950. At Buckshaw, the crumbling country seat of the de Luce family, very-nearly-eleven-year-old Flavia is plotting revenge on her older sisters.

Then a dead bird is left on the doorstep, which has an extraordinary effect on Flavia’s eccentric father, and a body is found in the garden. As the police descend on Buckshaw, Flavia decides to do some investigating of her own.

If you have read this book, what did you think?

Maigret and the Wine Merchant by Georges Simenon: Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

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. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

Maigret and the Wine Merchant is one of the books I’m currently reading. I fancied reading something shorter that the books I’ve been reading and thought this one with just 176 pages was ideal. It’s the seventy first book in the Maigret series, and was originally published in 1971. The Penguin Classics edition was first published in September 2019.

The book begins:

“You only killed her to rob her, didn’t you?”

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

‘Was Madame Thorel one of Oscar Chabut’s mistresses?’

‘Rita? She’s come with him and with overs. She’s a sexy little brunette who can’t do without men.’

Description from Goodreads:

‘Maigret had never been comfortable in certain circles, among the wealthy bourgeoisie where he felt clumsy and awkward … Built like a labourer, Oscar Chabut had hauled himself up into this little world through sheer hard work and, to convince himself that he was accepted, he felt the need to sleep with most of the women.’

When a wealthy wine merchant is shot in a Paris street, Maigret must investigate a long list of the ruthless businessman’s enemies before he can get to the sad truth of the affair.