Opening Shots: The Vision

"Gloves of blood."

The Vision
by Dean Koontz
(Putnam, 1977)

My earlier post on Koontz and Cain reminded me of this novel. It's one of my favorites because it applies a spare Cain-like style to a supernatural horror story. In her Koontz bio, Katherine Ramsland writes that Koontz "had noticed how many contemporary horror novels were written in a dense, baroque style, and he pondered what it would be like to cross horror with the stripped-down language of the fast-paced detective fiction of the 1930s." This "experiment" became The Vision. If only more horror novels cooked like this one.

Opening Shots: "My Lips Destroy"

May Twentieth... I met her last night. I met her last night, and I'm marrying her tomorrow.

"My Lips Destroy"
by Cornell Woolrich
From the collection Beyond the Night
(Avon, 1959)

What I love about this one is its simple components. Little more than a dateline and two short sentences—one of them repeated, even. And it's impossible to stop reading.

Opening Shots: Giveaway

"I admit I have this habit of noticing dames."

Giveaway
by Steve Fisher
(Bantam, October 1955)

Fisher is the author of the classic I Wake Up Screaming, and the recent Hard Case Crime reprint, No House Limit. Book cover scan from the excellent BookScans Database.

Opening Shots: Citizen Vince

One day you know more dead people than live ones.

Citizen Vince
by Jess Walter
(Regan Books, 2005)

This is one of those novels I want to re-read every year, just to revel in the voice. Highly recommended.

Opening Shots: The First Quarry

The night after Christmas and all through the house, it was colder than fuck.

The First Quarry
by Max Allan Collins
(Hard Case Crime, 2008)


A tip of the hat to Adam Siegel for recommending this one. Got an "Opening Shot" you want to share? Hit me!

Opening Shots: Blossom

The sun dropped on the far side of the Hudson River like it knew what was coming.

Blossom
by Andrew Vachss
(Knopf, 1990)

Opening Shots: Night of Thunder

Brother Richard liked it loud. He punched the iPod up all the way until the music hammered in his brain, its force beating away like some banshee howl from the high, dark mountains hidden behind the screen of rushing trees. He was holding at eight-five miles her hour, even through the turns, though that took a surgeon's skill, a miracle of guts and timing.

Night of Thunder
by Stephen Hunter
(Simon and Shuster, 2008)

Opening Shots: A Fredric Brown Sampler

Late this morning I found a dead man in my backyard.

The Lenient Beast
by Fredric Brown
(Dutton, 1956)






Sudden terror in her eyes, Jenny backed away from the knife, her hand gripping behind her for the knob of the kitchen door. She was too frightened to scream and ayway there was no one to hear, no one but the man who came toward her with the knife--and he was mad, he must be mad. Her hand found the knob and turned it; the door swung outward into the night and she whirled through it, running. Death ran after her.

Eight years passed.

Then:

The Far Cry
by Fredric Brown
(Dutton, 1951)


You can never tell what a drunken Irishman will do.

The Screaming Mimi
by Fredric Brown
(Dutton, 1949)






Her name was Joyce Dugan, and at four o'clock on this February afternoon she had no remote thought that within the hour before closing time she was about to commit an act that would instigate a chain of murders.

His Name Was Death
by Fredric Brown
(Dutton, 1954)

Opening Shots: Knock Three-One Two

He had a name, but it doesn't matter; call him the psycho.

Knock Three-One-Two
by Fredric Brown
(Dutton, 1959)

This is one of my favorite Brown novels—right up there with His Name Was Death. And it's absolutely screaming to be reprinted.

Opening Shots: Deadline

When his girlfriend greeted him at the door dressed only in a T-shirt and thong, then kissed him hard on the mouth without a word before pulling him into her ground-floor bedroom, she was so worked up she didn't even notice that he was wearing gloves.

Deadline
by Simon Kernick
(Corgi, 2008)

Note: This is only available in a UK edition (so far), but I was able to order a copy through Murder By the Book in Houston, Texas.

Opening Shots: Somebody's Done For

There was no land in sight.

Some seventy feet above the water a famished seagull circled slowly, somewhat warily. It had spotted this thing that seemed to be bobbing listlessly on the surface and was evidently too weary to resist assault. The thing looked like meat, and the bird's empty belly sent an urgent directive to the white wings, something along the lines of let's go down there and grab a fast bite. But the gull's brain counseled in terms of caution. The only feasible move was to take a closer look.

Somebody's Done For
by David Goodis
(Banner, 1967)

This book, available for 60 cents, was on the racks right around the time my dad was preparing to go to Vietnam. Goodis would be dead a few months later.

Opening Shots: Bright Lights, Big City

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head.

Bright Lights, Big City
By Jay McInerney
(Vintage, 1984)

I read this one in high school--maybe it was 1987 or early 1988. I wanted to work at a magazine very, very badly after finishing it. And lo! I ended up working as a fact-checker, just like the protagonist. Which goes to show you that high school students shouldn't read contemporary lit; it fucks you up for life. One other thing: in the copy I bought, McInerney's author photo was blurred on the right side, which made me think he had some kind of horrible, Harvey Dent-esque facial deformity.

Opening Shots: Yellow Medicine

After two weeks of being shuffled around to similar bland cells, bland interrogation rooms, and bland Federal types asking dull-as-dishwater questions about my "contacts in the criminal underworld," Agent Rome finally walked into the room. I'd wondered when that would happen. I was worried about Drew, hoping she had made it back to safety. I wondered how the murder of Graham, my ex-brother-in-law and boss, would be received at home—both in Yellow Medicine County and with his family down South. I wondered how many people would blame me. Maybe Rome had the answers.

Yellow Medicine
by Anthony Neil Smith
(Bleak House, 2008)

Opening Shots: The Silver Bear

The last day of the cruelest month, and appropriately it rains. Not the spring rain of life and rebirth, not for me. Death. In my life, always death. I am young; if you saw me on the street, you might think, "what a nice, clean-cut young man. I'll bet he works in advertising or perhaps a nice accounting firm. I'll bet he's married and is just starting a family. I'll bet his parents raised him well." But you would be wrong. I am old in a thousand ways. I have seen things and done things that would make you rush instinctively to your child's bedroom and hug him tight to your chest, breathing quick in short bursts like a misfiring engine, and repeat over and over, "It's okay, baby. It's okay. Everything's okay."

The Silver Bear
by Derek Haas
(Pegasus Books, 2008)

Opening Shots: Mefisto In Onyx

Once. I only went to bed with her once. Friends for eleven years--before and since--but it was just one of those things, just one of those crazy flings: the two of us alone on a New Year's Eve, watching rented Marx Brothers videos so we wouldn't have to go out with a bunch of idiots and make noise and pretend we were having a good time when all we'd be doing was getting drunk, whooping like morons, vomiting on slow-moving strangers, and spending more money than we had to waste.

Mefisto In Onyx
by Harlan Ellison
(Mark V. Ziesing, 1994)

Opening Shots: Half the Blood of Brooklyn

I don't like him. I don't like the way he smells. I don't like the way he looks. I don't like his shoes. If I stuck a blade in him and drank the blood that shot out of the open wound, I wouldn't like the way he tastes.

Half the Blood of Brooklyn
by Charlie Huston
(Del Rey, 2007)

("Opening Shots" is a new feature here at Secret Dead Blog where I post the opening line of a particular novel. Check back every Monday for more!)

Opening Shots: The Kill Riff

This time he would pull the trigger without blinking.

The Kill Riff
by David J. Schow
(Tor, 1988)

("Opening Shots" is a new feature here at Secret Dead Blog where I post the opening line or two of a novel. Does it grab you? Does it make you want to track down this book right this very instant? Let me know!)

Opening Shots: The Cold Spot

Chase was laughing with the others during the poker game when his grandfather threw down his cards, took a deep pull on his beer, and with no expression at all shot Walcroft in the head.


The Cold Spot
by Tom Piccirilli
(Bantam, 2008)

("Opening Shots" is a new feature here at Secret Dead Blog where I post the opening line or two of a novel. Check back every Monday for more. The "Monday Moment of Noir" and "Hardboiled Fridays" will most likely resume in September. Maybe.)