Opening Sentence of the Day: The Hidden Target

The church lay in the heart of the city.

-- The Hidden Target by Helen MacInnes.

I always love her books.  Everyone is dashing and debonair, the women wear dresses and high-heeled pumps but can still can outrun bad guys, and the stories are a little racy with some European flair.  

This one involves "a new undercover counter-terrorist network" and "a deadly game playing across thee continents." It was published in 1980, so won't have the kitschy, Mid-Century charm of her earlier books.But I'm sure I will still love it.

Teaser Tuesday: Marrying the Mistress

"You can't write her off as a gold-digger or a marriage-wrecker or a legal groupie or a sex bomb.  You can't write Dad off, either, as a classic male menopause victim wanting to reassure himself that he could still double the world's population if he wanted to."

-- Marrying the Mistress by Joanna Trollope.

These are the comments of one of the Judge's children when discussing their father's announcement that he is going to marry his long-time lawyer girlfriend.  Unfortunately, he's still married to their mother. 

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Happy Memorial Day!

Opening Sentence of the Day: The James Joyce Murder

James Joyce's Ulysses, as almost everybody knows by now, is a long book recounting life in Dublin on a single day: June 16, 1904.

 -- The James Joyce Murder by Amanda Cross.  This is the second in her series featuring English professor Kate Fansler. I haven't read the first one yet, so I am breaking with my usual rule of reading a series in order. I feel so wild.

I think I am really going to like this one. It was published in 1967, so satisfies my recent yearning for vintage mysteries (even if it is past the 1960 cut-off date for the Vintage Mystery Challenge), it has a literary theme (even if I have mixed feelings about Joyce after tackling Finnigans Wake), and it takes place in the Berkshires. 

Opening Sentence of the Day: Marrying the Mistress

 

"It would be advisable," the court official said to the security guard, "just to keep the laddie up here for half an hour."

-- Marrying the Mistress by Joanna Trollope.

I've never read any of her books and am looking forward to this one as pure guilty pleasure. A perfect weekend book. It is about a judge who does, in fact, decide to marry his mistress. And she's a lawyer to boot. Well, well.