They say we only get one chance to make a first impression.That got me thinking about the great characters in our genre. What is the first thing we learn about them? Here are the introductions to some of them. They are in alphabetical order by the name of the character. The answers are at the bottom. Good luck.
1. He threw soup at the wall in an Italian restaurant.
2. She jumped a pothole in Canal Street as she dashed between honking cars and double-parked ones.
3. He sat with his pint of Bass East India moodliy watching the froth disperse.
4.He was in a chemistry lab bemoaning that he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms he had found, and which were too much for his purse.
5. One of his core beliefs is that eventually all the New Empire restaurant will offer will be egg-fried rice and sweet-and-sour pork.
6. He was wearing a powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks, with dark blue clocks on them.
7. Her parlor was an old room with broad black beams across the ceiling, furnished with good furniture that belonged to it.
8. When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, he told him to go to hell.
9. When she first set eyes on Evelyn Barton-Forbes she (Evelyn) was walking the streets of Rome.
10. He was a little man who kissed a friend on both cheeks upon seeing him for the first time in years.
11. He was surprised to see a white man walk into Joppy's bar.
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12. He was arrested in Eno's diner.
13. His jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth.
14. He thought maybe he should have worn a tie to the office of the university president.
15. As she drove south along Lake Michigan she could smell rotting alewives like a faint perfume on the heavy air.
16. He left the catalogue at home.
17. He never hesitates to send his assistant running down to Murray Street for a can of shoe-polish if he happened to need one.
1. Father Brown. Chesterton, "The Blue Cross."
2. Lydia Chin. Rozan, China Trade.
3. Sergeant Cribb. Lovesey. The Detective Wore Silk Drawers.
4.Sherlock Holmes. Doyle. A Study in Scarlet.
5. Jackson Lamb. Herron. Slow Horses.
6. Philip Marlowe. Chandler. The Big Sleep.
7. Miss Jane Marple. Christie. "The Tuesday Night Club."
8. Parker. The Hunter.
9. Amelia Peabody. Peters. Crocodile on the Sandbank.
10. Hercule Poirot. Christie. The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
11.Easy Rawlins. Mosley. Devil in a Blue Dress.
12. Jack Reacher. Child. Killing Floor.
13. Sam Spade. Hammett. The Maltese Falcon.
14. Spenser. Parker. The Godwulf Manuscript.
15. V.I. Warshawski. Paretsky. Indemnity Only.
16. Lord Peter Wimsey. Sayers. Whose Body?
17. Nero Wolfe. Stout. Fer-De-Lance.
The only one I got was number 11, Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins!
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