Mystery Scene magazine has a column called The Hook: Intriguing First Lines. It might be better titled The Hook: Intriguing Beginnings or The Hook: Great Openings, because the column doesn't limit itself to first sentences, but usually to entire paragraphs.
To me, it's harder to create a hook with only one sentence, than it is to use a whole paragraph to set the stage.
Dick Francis was good at the first sentence. Five of my favorites are ...
I was never particularly keen on my job before the day I
got shot and nearly lost it, along with my life.
Odd Against
I picked four of them up in White Waltham in the new Cherokee Six 300 that never got a chance to grow old.
Rat Race
Art Mathews shot himself, loudly and messily, in the center of the parade ring at Dunstable races.
Nerve
I looked at my friend and saw a man who had robbed me.
High Stakes
I immensely disliked my father's fifth wife, but not to the point of murder.
Hot Money
Odd Against
I picked four of them up in White Waltham in the new Cherokee Six 300 that never got a chance to grow old.
Rat Race
Art Mathews shot himself, loudly and messily, in the center of the parade ring at Dunstable races.
Nerve
I looked at my friend and saw a man who had robbed me.
High Stakes
I immensely disliked my father's fifth wife, but not to the point of murder.
Hot Money
Mystery readers who haven't delved into his books might want to start out with Odds Against, High Stakes, or To The Hilt. All of the books do have a racing backdrop, but they're about architecture, painting, inventors, private investigators, kidnapping specialists, and more. Every book has a "career" in it. It's not just racing, racing, racing, for those readers who avoid anything that has to do with horse-racing. ;-)
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