First Chapter ~ First Paragraph (May 1)

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Vicky from I’d Rather Be At The Beach who posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

This week I’m sharing the opening paragraph of The Lodgerby Marie Belloc Lowndes which will be my next choice from my Classics Club reading list. This thriller has been filmed five times and was originally published in 1913 so I’m really looking forward to seeing what this one has to offer!

Blurb

The Buntings are an elderly London couple who have fallen on hard times. They take in a lodger with the strange name of Mr. Sleuth, who pays handsomely for their shabby rooms. He seems to be a perfect gentleman but none the less they begin to suspect that he may be the Jack-the-Ripper-like serial killer known in the press as ‘The Avenger’. As the number of murders in the city begins to mount, and Mr. Bunting’s teenage daughter from an earlier marriage comes to stay, the couple must decide what to do about the man in their upstairs rooms. An early example of a psychological suspense story and a brilliant evocation of the fog-bound and gaslit streets of late Victorian London, The Lodger is still a wonderfully compelling thriller. Amazon

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First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~ Intro

1

Robert Bunting and Ellen his wife sat before their dully burning, carefully banked-up fire.

The room, especially when it be known that it was part of a house standing in a grimy, if not exactly sordid, London thoroughfare, was exceptionally clean and well cared-for. A casual stranger, more particularly one of a Superior class to their own, on suddenly opening the door of that sitting room, would have thought that Mr and Mrs Bunting presented a very pleasant, cosy picture of comfortable married life. Bunting, who was leaning back in a deep leather armchair, was clean-shaven and dapper, still in appearance what he had been for many years of his life – a self-respecting manservant
On his wife, now sitting up in an uncomfortable straight-backed chair, the marks of past servitude were less apparent; but they were there all the same – in her neat black stuff dress, and in her scrupulously clean, plain collar and cuffs. Mrs Bunting, as a single woman, had been what is known as a useful maid..

So that’s a snapshot of the Buntings, how I’m wonder will the lodger measure up?

What do you think? Would you keep reading?