A selection of first sentences #2

In her black slip and her fluffy mules, Grooters was ironing a skirt.
The Chelsea Murders - Lionel Davidson

The morning delivery brought a single letter to Wellington Cotter's letterbox.
The Merchant of Parramatta - Martin Long

Later that summer, when Mrs. Penmark looked back and remembered, when she was caught up in despair so deep that she knew there was no way out, no solution whatever for the circumstances that encompassed her, it seemed to her that June seventh, the day of the Fern Grammar School picnic, was the day of her last happiness, for never since then had she known contentment or felt peace.
The Bad Seed - William March

Only a devout Freudian who really believed that all liking is love and all love is sexual could have seen anything perverse in the school friendship of Lee and Laurie.
A Change of Heart - Helen McCloy

The moment I saw Morland step into the Beauregard I hit the floor and started crawling for the back door.
Snatch - Rennie Airth

A child's hand and a piece of chalk had made it: a careful, child's scrawl of white lines on the red bricks of the wall beside Jander's Livery Stable: a crude pair of sticks for the gallows tree, a thick broken line for the rope, and then the scarecrow of the hanging man.
The Night of the Hunter - Davis Grubb

It was half past nine in the morning when the ringing of her bedside telephone roused Louise Hilary from her doped sleep.
Death and the Sky Above - Andrew Garve

You're asleep now, David.
Death is a Dream - Robert Arthur

There was a vast blue bowl which was the sky.
Side Bet - Will F. Jenkins