We have the newest Jane Hawk thriller, The Crooked Staircase by Dean Koontz for Book Beginnings on Fridays.
Book Beginnings is a fun meme hosted by Rose City Reader blog. To participate, share the first sentence or so of a novel you are reading and your thoughts about it. When you are finished, add your URL to the Book Beginnings page linked above. Hope to see you there!
The Crooked Staircase* by Dean Koontz
(*Amazon Affiliate link)
Summary: In the third novel of the series, Jane Hawk is still hunting the secret organization responsible for her husband’s death as well as the deaths countless other innocent victims. Previously an FBI agent, her pursuit of the villains has turned her former employers against her, so now she is running from both former friends and enemies. Will she be able to stop the man behind it all before her pursuers catch her?
First Sentence of The Crooked Staircase:
At seven o’clock on that night in March, during a thunderless but heavy rain pounding as loud as an orchestra of kettledrums, Sara Holdsteck finally left the offices of Paradise Real Estate, carrying her briefcase in her left hand, open purse slung over her left shoulder, right hand free for a cross-body draw of the gun in the purse.
Discussion:
What a lot of information in one sentence! We have the who, when, and where as well as a set up that leaves the reader wondering what is going to happen next.
Conventional wisdom says not to start a novel with a reference to the weather, but since this sentence includes so much else in addition to the rain, I think it works.
What do you think? Have you read any of Koontz’s Jane Hawk thrillers?
Hope you are having a wonderful Friday!
As we are now up to book #5 in the series, this will probably be one on my ‘miss shelf’, which is a pity, as I haven’t read any Dean Koontz books for years and I wouldn’t have minded seeing if his writing style had changed from that which I remember.
I haven’t come across the conventional wisdom about starting a novel with a reference to the weather, but then like most of my fellow Brits, the weather is all we ever seem to talk about first, in any conversation!
I was also a little put off by Dean’s use of the hyphen in thunder-less, as I have never come across it split up in this way before and I couldn’t find reference to it being a hyphenated word on any of the dictionary sites.
The storyline sounds great though and I hope that you enjoy the read 🙂
Yvonne
xx
You have a good eye. The “thunder-less” was the result of a split line, which I took to be a hyphen because my spellcheck didn’t recognize thunderless as a word. Looking it up, I see some dictionaries do include it. I’ll correct that.
I know he’s very popular, but Koontz’s books scare me. I haven’t read any, but just the descriptions give me pause.
His books do contain some graphic violence and scary situations.
Oh, yes, I must find out more about this book! It has been a while since I read the author.
Thanks for sharing, and for visiting my blog.
I’ve yet to read anything by Dean Koontz, but this series sounds great. Thanks for sharing! Hope you have an awesome weekend! 🙂
That’s an intriguing first sentence. You have me hooked on Jane Hawk from your earlier mentions of her. Now I have to read this one!
I thought of you when I saw this.
Hope you’ll enjoy this new book in the series.
I haven’t ever been hooked by a Dean Koontz series. Although I may have read a few years ago, somehow the series never gripped me. This looks good though.
I haven’t heard of this series and I’m not sure it’d be a suitable read for me. But I hope you like it 🙂
It’s definitely a thriller.