The Official Daniel McAdam
Website -
For People Who Like Mystery Fiction
. . . and other stuff.
First Lines
The first line of a novel can be a make-or-break issue, especially for new authors. Below, some examples are offered. Draw your own conclusions.
"Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego." - Jack London, The Call of the Wild
"I was an only child - and so I became an only man." - Lawrence Sanders, The Tenth Commandment
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents - except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford
"In Paris on a chilling evening late in October of 1985 I first became fully aware that the struggle with the disorder in my mind--a struggle which had engaged me for several months--might have a fatal outcome." - Edward Styron, Darkness Visible
"In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army." - Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills." - Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
"I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to see me." - Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
"Someone must have traduced Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning." - Franz Kafka, The Trial
"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher." - Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher
"Who is there who has not felt a sudden startled pang at reliving an old experience or feeling an old emotion?" - Agatha Christie, Curtain
"The best remedy for a bruised heart is not, as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom." - Dorothy Sayers, Have His Carcase
"Upon a certain dreary April afternoon in the year of grace, 1906, the apprehensions of Philip Kirkwood, Esquire, Artist-peintre, were enlivened by the discovery that he was occupying that singularly distressing social position, which may be summed up succinctly in a phrase through long usage grown proverbial: 'Alone in London.'" - Louis J. Vance, The Black Bag
"Of all the criminal cases in which Philo Vance participated as unofficial investigator, the most sinister, the most bizarre, the seemingly most incomprehensible, and certainly the most terrifying was the one that followed the famous Greene murders." - S. S. Van Dine, The Bishop Murder Case
Please use the box below to search our site for a specific term or phrase: