Frederick Forsyth, another one of my favorite authors. I've read The Odessa File (New York: Bantam Books 1992) twice if not more. I know how it turns out and I reread it again because getting there is so amazing.
So here it is:
There was a thin robin's-egg-blue dawn coming up over Tel Aviv when he intelligence analyst finished typing his report.What does this tell us? It's a clear day. The intelligence analyst has been working all night, so something must be up, unless he always works nights in which case it's just another day in his life. We are told it's a beautiful day dawning, suggesting good things maybe on the way, but the use of the adjective "robin's-egg-blue" attributes a kind of fragility to the coming dawn as if something bad could well happen.
Well, kind of a limited start. But the first sentence has to do less work this time around because, if for no other reason, Mr. Forsyth is well know from his books, including Day of the Jackal, from which a brilliant movie was made, and which, by the way he had a lot of trouble getting published which tells you what the hell publishers know--Nothing. And if the reader doesn't know about the author already, the Author's note and the Foreward do a lot of the work for it.
What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com
Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.
Ian Kearney, the director of the Kearney Music School, an elite musical training school in Philadelphia, dies after a fall from a balcony during a recital. World-famous cellist, Henry Harrier, recently forced from the faculty, returns to investigate Ian's death when his prized former student is arrested. Henry shows through his brilliant and single-minded pursuit of the truth that, as usual, they have it all wrong. This Sherlock Holmes-type mystery leads the reader through the world of classical music and lays bare the conflicts which dominate the lives of talented adolescents when placed under the pressure of studying for a demanding, stressful, and often elusive career as a classical music performer. Henry Harrier is part John Le Carre's George Smiley, part Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes, and part Orlando Cole the beloved teacher, renowned chamber musician, and until his own retirement, the premier cellist of the Curtis Institute.
Tim was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on January 30, 1946. In 1951 he moved with his family to Schenectady, New York, where he lived through high school. He attended Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio, from 1964 to 1968. He graduated in 1968 with a B.A. in history and philosophy. He received his Ph. D. in history in U.S. history in 1980 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after spending 2.5 years in the U. S. Army. Most of his army service was completed in Wuerzburg, Germany, from 1969-1971. In 1972 he returned to Madison to complete his doctoral study. His dissertation, Those Who Moved; Internal Migrants in American 1607-1840, combined the statistical analysis of genealogical and biographical data with the study of traditional literary diaries, letters, and journals.
