Guess the opening lines...

[kinkytoes]

Hi all, hope it's ok to start this here.

Thought it might be fun and stretch the old grey matter a bit.

I'll attach a shot of some opening lines and whoever guesses correctly post their own?

We could all just post pics but then we might lose track. I don't mind.

Let me know what you think (of the idea, and the opening lines here - hopefully started off with an easyish one but let me know if any clues are needed!)

If it's being done elsewhere please someone direct me 😊

I was never particularly keen on my job before the day I got shot and nearly lost it, along with my life. But the .38 slug of lead which made a pepper-shaker out of my intestines left me with fire in my belly in more ways than one. Otherwise I should never have met Zanna Martin, and would still be held fast in the spider-threads of departed joys, of no use to anyone, least of all myself.

@@@@@@@@

This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve.

If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events which fill these pages might have claimed their share of the public attention in a Court of Justice.

I think that second one is The Woman in White. I feel I should know the first one, but I don't.

It is The Woman in White. I thought that would be the more difficult one!

The first one is a very well known author. Will give it a bit of time to see if anyone else gets it.

I think the first is a Dick Francis, but I can’t recall which

Too late as people have beaten me to it but I recognised The Tiger In the Smoke and Miss Pym Disposes. Between Peter Wimsey, Campion, Roderick Alleyn and Alan Grant, Campion was always my favourite. I love Margery Allingham's writing; she's just so observant and measured. I read and reread her books all through my teens and twenties. Really enjoy Josephine Tey too especially Brat Farrar and The Franchise Affair.

I think the first is a Dick Francis, but I can’t recall which

Yes, it's Odds Against, the first Sid Halley book.

We stand, the three of us, me, Sylvie and Rube, pressed up against the saloon door, brown ales clutched in our hands.

and what about:

On an autumn afternoon of 1919 a hatless man with a slight limp might have been observed ascending the gentle, broad acclivity of [giveaway placename] which lead from King's Cross Road up to [another] in the great metropolitan industrial district of Clerkenwell.

Both correct: quartet comes from Latin, tetralogy from Greek.

Murder must advertise

On an autumn afternoon of 1919 a hatless man with a slight limp might have been observed ascending the gentle, broad acclivity of [giveaway placename] which lead from King's Cross Road up to [another] in the great metropolitan industrial district of Clerkenwell.

I haven't read the whole book but I do recognise the opening - Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett.

Cold comfort farm! Love Flora x

The first one is Up The Junction by Nell Dunn

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. I say ‘one chooses’ with the inaccurate pride of a professional writer who—when he has been seriously noted at all—has been praised for his technical ability, but do I in fact of my own will choose that black wet January night on the Common, in 1946, the sight of slanting across the wide river of rain, or did these images choose me?

I think this is Graham Greene. The End of the Affair?

@pollyhemlock yes! Have you ever done the Nemo’s Almanac quiz? I used to do it every year until Google started. Then, as so much could be found online, the quotes became harder and more obscure so I gave up.
You would be brilliant at it.

Don't think anyone has identified my short story opening yet?
It was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that indefinite season when partridges are still in security or cold storage, and there is nothing to hunt, unless one is bounded on the North by the Bristol Channel, in which case one may lawfully gallop after fat red stags.
I'll also offer this.
Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice's Lenten fast in the desert.

An iconic one from one of my favourites:

Many years later, in front of the firing squad, colonel Aureliano Buendía would remember that distant afternoon his father took him to see ice.

I was given it for Christmas a few years ago and it was so difficult I gave up!

One Hundred Years Of Solitude.

Here’s my contribution:

’”You too will marry a boy I choose” said Mrs Rupa Mehta firmly to her younger daughter.’

It is time that I told this story. I do not know if I shall ever bring myself to publish it; not because of hurting the people involved - those it could have hurt most are dead; but because it is a sort of confession, and I dislike confessional writing.

*

In those days people still went on holiday by train and bus. Spain was where the onions came from. Abroad was for the privileged few. People went to places like Scarborough and Bridlington, Great Yarmouth and Southend, Bournemouth and Llandudno, Morecambe and Blackpool. They still do, but then they went in their millions, and without the freedom of the motor car they needed lodgings.

One I know at last!

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth.

I don't know either of those, but the fact that the first one is a short story opening makes me wonder about Saki. It doesn't sound like Graham Greene and I don't think it's Evelyn Waugh.

Full marks - Tobermory. 😸

One of my favourites! Should have spotted it sooner.

This thread tells me I need to read more books! 🙈