The problem with playing this game is that really good last
lines don't make much sense if you haven't read the story
that went before them. The best last line I've ever read
comes at the end of *Rogue Moon* by Algis Budrys:
"Remember me to her." Not much of a line by itself. Read the
book and it'll break your heart. It's SF, but it's pretty
hardboiled. The other problem is that a lot of really good
last lines give away the book, which hardly seems fair. But
here's one I like by Clark Howard, the best short story
writer in the business. It's from an okay novel, published
under what was either the worst pseudonym of all time or a
stupid publisher's mistake. I'm guessing the latter. From
*Last Contract* by 'Howard Clark' --
"After Willis had left the alley, the cat came out of it's
hiding place behind the garbage cans and walked over to
Trevor. It whined once, as if in misery, and licked the cheek
of the dead man.
"Then it sat with Trevor all night and kept the rats away
from him until his body was found by a milkman early the next
morning."
I like to think my cats would do the same for me.
BobT
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
George Upper wrote:
> Hi, folks. I made this list for a poetry group
to
> which I belong (nevermind why, I just did). I
thought
> that some rara-avians might have some other
favorites
> that didn't make my list.
>
> G.
>
> Top Five Last Lines / Passages from
Hard-Boiled
> Detective Novels:
>
> 5. She had said it to her killers before she
died.
> Her name was Mae Robicheaux. And I was her
son.
> (James Lee Burke, HEAVEN'S PRISONERS,
1988)
>
> 4. And then the goddamnedest thing happened.
I
> started to cry. (Lawrence Block, EIGHT MILLION
WAYS
> TO DIE, 1982)
>
> 3. It would be one kind of penance. And there
are
> never enough kinds. Not for him. Not for me.
And
> certainly not for you, my friend. (John D.
MacDonald,
> A PURPLE PLACE FOR DYING, 1964)
>
> 2. I might just as well have saved the labor
and
> sweat I had put into trying to make my
reports
> harmless. They didn't fool the Old Man. He gave
me
> merry hell. (Dashiell Hammett, RED HARVEST,
1929)
>
> 1. The Danzig brothers and I were sharing a table
and
> a bottle inside with Hattie tending bar
when
> Lieutenant Valery Kozlowski showed up with the
walking
> sputum from the Detroit Prohibition Squad. (Loren
D.
> Estleman, PEEPER, 1989)
>
> =====
> George C. Upper III, Editor
> The Lightning Bell Poetry Journal
> http://www.lightningbell.org/
>
>
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