Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Your Favorite Tough Guys

From: William Denton ( buff@pobox.com)
Date: 18 Feb 2005


On 18 February 2005, Michael Robison wrote:

: "When the phone rang, Spenser was in the garage killing a man." Haha!
: Loved it. Might not be verbatim. Close as I can remember.

That's from FIREBREAK (2001), a Parker novel by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake): "When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man." It's a great opening line.

Most of Stark's books start with the "when (something), Parker (did X)" construction (which must have some grammatical name I don't know). Sometimes I make up my own versions, for when Parker's working in a boring office job: "When Outlook reminded him of his eleven o'clock meeting, Parker was finishing his third game of Solitaire." "When the coffee urn stopped pouring and left his mug only half-filled, Parker got a fresh package of grounds from the cupboard."

Bill

-- 
William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.



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