Mysteries and Murders

Random first lines from a random book plucked from the stack on my desk--a novel by Australian writer John Harwood called The Seance, published last month by HMH. This gothic thriller is set in Victorian England, and yes, contains a house, a mystery, and murder.

"January 1889

"If my sister Alma had lived, I should never have begun the seances. She died of scarlatina, soon after her second birthday, when I was five years old. I remember only fragments from the time before she died: Mama dancing Alma on her knee, and singing as she would never do again; reading my primer aloud to Mama while she rocked Alma's cradle with her foot; walking beside Annie, our nurse, while she pushed the perambulator past the Foundling Hospital with me holding on to the frame. I remember coming home after one of those walks and being allowed to nurse Alma by the drawing-room fire, feeling the heat of the flames on my cheek as I held her. I remember, too--though perhaps I was only told of it--lying in a cot and shivering, looking up at a window which seemed very small and far away, and hearing the sound of weeping, muffled as if through thick cotton wool."

--From The Seance, by John Harwood