Another selection of first sentences

Garth Sullivan decided to kill his brother on an evening that started out like dozens of other evenings.
My Brother's Killer - Jean Potts (1975)

Arthur Henry Spain, butcher, of Harlow Place, Flaxborough, awoke one morning from a dream in which he had been asking all his customers how to spell 'phlegm' and thought, quite inconsequentially: I haven't seen anything of Lillian lately.
Lonelyheart 4122 - Colin Watson (1967)

I was twenty-two and without employment. I would not say by this that I was without occupation.
The Type-Writer Girl - Grant Allen (1897)

Mr Van Eyck had a great deal of money which he didn't know how to spend, and a great deal of time which he didn't know how to spend. On sunny days he sat on the club terrace writing anonymous letters.
The Murder of Miranda - Margaret Millar (1979)

'She's dead,' James said, giving her a slight push with his foot.
Alas Poor Father - Joan Fleming (1972)

Again it was the blackbirds that first woke him up, just as they had done every morning.
The Brothers Rico - Georges Simenon (1954)

She was sitting there at her glass, at the fashionable going-out hour, trying to decide between a cluster of crystal grapes and a live gardenia as a shoulder decoration, when someone knocked at the suite door, outside across the adjoining reception room.
Black Alibi - Cornell Woolrich (1942)

A boy stumbled up the hillside, half-blinded by tears. He fell and, for a time, choked and sobbed as he lay in the sun but presently blundered on. A lark sang overhead.
Dead Water - Ngaio Marsh (1964)

It was not more than five minutes before that he had got up to push back a log in the fireplace which had slipped from the grate, sending out a sheaf of sparks, and his face was still flushed from bending over the flames.
The Witnesses - Georges Simenon (1956)