Writing Meme Question 4

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like).

Something recently I wrote. I won't say 'proud' because I have a difficult time with that word, but I can HEAR this banter between BBC Sherlock & Lestrade (genderswapped) in my head very, very clearly, and I can see them and the scene in my head and it rolls along very nicely, I think. This is from don't call it a comeback (i been here for years).

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Lestrade’s laugh turned into a hacking, wheezy cough as she tapped a tiny notebook with a pen.

“Well, well, Sherlock Holmes, you certainly know how to make a comeback. Your girlfriend is being treated for…shock. Your landlord is being treated for…shock. Half your neighbourhood is being treated for…shock. And your, what did you call her, twin?”

“Doppelganger,” grumbled Sherlock.

“Ah, yes, your doppelganger is being treated for,” Lestrade glanced at the body, “very bloody dead. Splendid. The pathologist is on her way. Looks like she’s got her work cut out for her with this one. Massive hemorrhaging but no visible wound.”

“There will be a wound, a small Y shaped one, made by the jaws of the Hirudinea Himalayaca Giganticus.”

“Huh. How do you spell that?”

Sherlock obliged.

Lestrade finished scribbling then flipped her little notebook closed with one hand.

“And what’s that when it’s at home?”

“The Giant Red Leech of the Lower Himalayas.”

“Fuck me!” breathed Lestrade.

“No, thank you,” parried Sherlock with a sniff. “The leech usually confines itself to a small region of the western Himalayas. Its bite releases the most powerful natural anti-coagulant known as well as other toxins which produce anaphylaxis and tachycardia. So, her violently agitated heart would have poured enervated blood out of every pore of her body until she died.”

“Ugh. I take it you’ve seen this before.”

“Eighteen months ago. In Bombay. I returned to my hotel room too late. One dropped from the light fixture overhead on a petty thief interested in removing the lace from my undergarments.”

“Really? That makes me grateful I never took a fancy to getting in your knickers.” Lestrade sighed. “Are we going to find who did this, Sherlock?”

“You’ll find who did it,” said Sherlock. “But not who’s responsible.”

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Quotes: Castle Skull by John Dickson Carr

I read Castle Skull by John Dickson Carr [1931, e-book] and highlighted some quotes. It has a lot Poe-esque ambience. This is book #2 in Carr's Mephistophelean French detective Bencolin series (with Jeff, his American Watson).

Then, subtly, Bencolin took command. The man could be genial when he chose; leaning back with a cigar in his fingers, he spoke lightly and with frankness of the whole affair. He mentioned the incongruity of French detectives and German crimes. [ch. IV]

“You read the magazines,” I said. “So do I,” Sally Reine informed me. “My old man gets heaps of them from the States. I like the detective-story ones, where the characters aren’t allowed to swear, and the Chicago gangster cries, ‘Good gracious!’ It’s nice to see the tough racketeer become a pathological case at one sweep of an editor’s blue pencil…” [ch. XV]

And this is tempting me to scribble a bit of watersports for Cheers.

Golden Dawns, and I’ve always wanted to mix them. You use two parts gin, one part orange juice, and one part apricot brandy.” [ch. XV]