Every time anyone drops dead of a heart attack or trips over his shoelaces in Venice, there's someone there the next day to tell me sixteen to the dozen, how to solve the stopped heart or retie the shoelaces. You've got the heart attack shoelace look about you, and I didn't sleep last night.
"Her hourglass is malfunctioning, someone has put funeral-urn ashes in it instead of sand. There are odd whispers in her icebox door. The ice falls inside the fridge at midnight and sounds like the wrong kind of laughter. The toilet across the hall gargles all night. The termites under her chair are going to gnaw through and drop her to hell. The spiders in the wall are mending her shroud."
"Only the projector and the films in the parlor. Time only works well in one direction. Back. I control the past. I'll be damned if I know what to do with the present, and to hell with the future. I'm not going to be there, don't want to go there, and would hate if you made me. It's a perfect life."
"(...) did strangers lie there, holding on their insides as if they were broken glass?"
"Cal, I thought. Snip away the darkness.
Short in front. So I can see.
Short on the sides. So I can hear.
Short in the back. So I can feel things creeping up on me.
Short!"
"The moon broke through a rift of darkness like a great eye watching me. I walked on mirrors which showed me the same moon and clouds. I walked on the sky beneath (...)"
pickBook #15 of 2024: “Death is a Lonely Business” by Ray Bradbury
I enjoyed this one. It‘s got a strong sense of melancholy with a whisper of hope. A good mystery that kept me engaged.
pickWhat a book! Bradbury is such a diverse writer.
I love the way the author tells is his story, the words he uses, the intensity he creates. It's suspenseful, mysterious and thrilling.
Unlike anything I read by Bradbury so far, or unlike any crime novels so far.
#BookSpinBingo
@TheAromaofBooks
so-soBradbury‘s contribution to murder mystery noir—I love the setting: Venice, CA, in the 1950s! If you know Venice/Santa Monica pier, it‘s fun history and lends a spooky air (and system of canals) to the plot. However the characters left me wanting and dialogue was repetitive
#authoramonth2020 @Soubhiville
#bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks
So who knew Ray Bradbury had written a mystery? Not me! This one is set in Venice (California) in 1949. I have been fascinated by Venice since I made my brother, who lived in LA, take me there a few years ago. RB lived there for a about a decade at that time. I have no idea what the eyeballs are about 👀
Another bookhaul! We went to a flea market one hour before closing, when they were selling stuff by the bag ($6 per bag), but they really wanted to get rid off stuff so we didn't even have to pay for our bag 😁This is a strategy that has worked many times for me!
Death is a Lonely Business | 
