Sunday is for beginnings, when we take a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. Because it’s on sale digitally till 1/24 for 99 cents – 99 cents! – here’s the beginning of the 5th novel I ever wrote, the total now nearing 50.

The blue hole isn’t blue. It is gray, even under a clear sky; just a quiet pond in the woods. Any of the village boys could skip a stone across it, but they never do. They don’t go near the blue hole because a monster lives at the bottom. The fisherman even claims he has seen it; the fisherman who drinks a bottle of rum a day.