Teaser Tuesday

I feel like I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately. None of the books I’m currently in the middle of are grabbing my attention, so I pulled a mystery off my shelf. Ngaio Marsh never disappoints.

This is from page 54 of Vintage Murder.

Everyone had stopped talking. Alleyn, in the sudden silence, received a curious impression of eager dimly-lit faces that peered, of a beautiful woman standing with one arm raised, holding the scissors as a lovely Atropos might hold aloft her shears, of a fat white waistcoated man like a Blampied caricature, bent over the table, and of a red cord that vanished upwards into the dark. Suddeny he felt intolerably oppressed, aware of a suspense out of all proportion to the moment. So strong was the impression that he half rose from his chair.

But at that moment Carolyn cut through the cord.

And of course, this being a muder mystery, you can guess that someone dies in the next paragraph.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!