Where is it from?

[Roan]

I think its familiar, and I want to say Robin Cook, but I dont know which one. Shock maybe?

[Frostina]

Robin Cook, yes. Shock, No!

 

[Roan]

Then it must be Coma (says he hopefully)

[comicfan]

Yup. I have the book and looked it up. Roan got that one.

[Guest Nisus]

"The horror, the horror!"

 

This author taught himself English and thus wrote in a style that is almost too proper and too wordy for some readers.

[Zombie]

Hmmm, gone kinda dead around these parts lately *watches tumble weed blowing across the trail as the wind moans eerily around the tumbledown ruins ...*

 

Anyway, I'm guessing these are words spoken by a key character at an important moment in some dusty fusty musty novel written by some dead guy - albeit in English, but the dead guy was a foreign jonny! *Holmes puffs his pipe approvingly*

But apart from that ... we need a clue!

 

(btw the game works by the guesser setting the next challenge so if Roan's monitoring this perhaps he can have the next go )

[Andy78]

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - they are Kurtz's dying words if memory serves

[Frostina]

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - they are Kurtz's dying words if memory serves

 

Now who is the one with the knowledge of musty dusty books

sheeesh!

[Andy78]

It was required reading when I did my GCSEs, so not read by choice

[Andy78]

I'll post the next quote tomorrow unless Roan puts in an appearance in which case he can post the next one.

[Guest Nisus]

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - they are Kurtz's dying words if memory serves

 

Yes! Joseph Conrad...no one is wordier than he.

[Andy78]

With no sight of Roan, I shall press on.

 

"You better not never tell nobody but God."

[Mikelaing74]

The colour purple by Alice Walker ?

[Andy78]

Well done Mike, your go.

[Andy78]

No sign of Mike, so does the next person who comes along want to post the next line.

[Zombie]

OK, Andy, just to keep the ball rolling until maybe Roan comes back

 

"The first thing my father did, in the minutes after I arrived, was to place around my neck a gold chain with a tiny pair of gold boxing gloves on it. It had been made before they even knew what sex I would be; a symbol of my future glory, and my father's highest hopes."

[bikerman]

Is that Gypsy Boy by Mikey Walsh?

[Zombie]

Yes it is. By turns unremittingly grim, funny, unbelievable, heartbreaking and ultimately uplifting.

Well done bikerman - over to you

[bikerman]

The sequel is very moving funny and all the thing you said about the first book too -- I got very interested in this mans life, so very different.

 

An easy one to follow:

 

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

[Zombie]

It's another dead guy, Dickens, but which one?

[Andy78]

I believe it's David Copperfield, by Dickens.

 

I haven't read the book, but the line was used in one of the film versions.

[bikerman]

Yes that's right - I read a lot of books by dead guys for some reason, must get out more.

On you go....

[Andy78]

"The man with the unfortunate face stood in aisle between the Science Fiction section and Crime, and he seemed to be trying to blend in with the bookshelves."

[Andy78]

Clue time:

 

The author is Irish and very much alive

 

The book was published this year - so is not a musty, dusty, fusty, ancient tome

[Andy78]

More clues:

 

The title character is dead and has featured in numerous stories in this series.

 

His first book in the series won the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book of the Decade Award, and the second book won an Irish Book Award for Children's Book of the Year