Sunday? Beginnings! Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue comes out in July (preorders welcome) and I’m getting asked if you need to have read her first adventure, Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge, first. Answer: NO. But now that #Revenge on my mind, how about we look at its beginning? It doesn’t start with Mrs. Plansky, who doesn’t appear until Chapter Two (same format as Hamlet! If you’re going to steal – and this crime fiction after all – steal from the best).

“Hello, it is I, your grandson, insert name here,” said Dinu.

“Correct,” said Professor Bogdan, language teacher at Liceu Teoretic. He leaned back in his chair and lit up a Chesterfield. “But too correct, you know?”

Too correct? Dinu did not know. In addition, he was asthmatic and the mere presence of a cigarette aroused a twitchy feeling in his lungs. No smoking in school, of course, but these private lessons, paid for by Uncle Dragomir, weren’t about school.
Professor Bogdan blew out a thin, dense stream of smoke, one little streamlet branching off and heading in Dinu’s direction.

“There is English, Dinu, and then there is English as she is spoken.” He smiled an encouraging smile. His teeth were yellow, shading into brown at the gumline.

“English is she?” Dinu said.