Two Sentence Tuesday

I knew David Dodge wrote TO CATCH A THIEF but had read little else by him. Thanks to the fine folks at Hard Case Crime, I can now add THE LAST MATCH to my list. I do a fair amount of traveling and the protagonist’s wandering spirit--Monaco, Brazil, Tangier, Peru, etc--spoke to me as a fellow gypsy of sorts. Though, I'll stick to the on-the-level profession of writing and not turn to crime as Dodge’s character does. Two lines:

They wanted the cutter and its load, not prisoners or corpses they would have to account for. But they kept machine-guns chattering at us, and I could feel the cigarette cartons at my back jerk, flinch and wince, or thought I could, as the slugs went into them.

What great prose! And there’s also a really touching afterward from David Dodge’s daughter which led me to a website where I gathered a few more titles to be added to my collection in the near future. A really engaging writer and rip-roaring story.

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My two lines (plus a bonus line) are from “The Sins of Maynard Shipley.” The rough draft came together in less than a day which was a welcomed first for me.

It’s two o’clock in the afternoon and I’m pushing the book cart from one geriatric’s room to the next. Chekhov, Hemingway, Joyce? I mean, for the love of Pete, half of them can’t remember they’ve shit their pants and I’m offering them Ulysses.

I'm a natural stickler when it comes to my yarns so who knows when it will see the light of day as I polish, re-polish and then triple shine. Until then, check out more TwoFers at Women of Mystery.