Welcome to the Summer "Mysterious Quote" item.  In this item, somebody
(usually whoever won the last one) enters a quote from a novel or other book.
Other people try to guess the author.  That's about all the rules, I think.

104 responses total.

I'm up after having guessed Edmond Spenser.

  "Thank you," he said.  "Lestrade, would you mind pulling the crate over
from the corner?  Just put it here, thank you."  He leaned forward, untied
the grubby string, and removed the top with the flourish of a conjurer.
Inside was a jumble of chromium-plated bits of metal, hunks of broken glass,
a large slab of dented mud guard, and a sheaf of the inevitable evidence
envelopes.  My heart twisted at the sight, then started to beat heavily.
I must have moved or made a sound, because _______ looked at me.
  "Yes, ________, the murder weapon.  Or rather, portions of it.  I knew
it would be there, once I knoew that Miss Ruskin had been killed by a
motorcar, and particularly when the machine was not found nearby, stolen,
used, and abandoned.  Why a motorcar, a method which took at least two
persons to arrange and had all the attendant danger of the telltale damage?
The person who thought of it had to have the vehicles both ready to mind and
near to hand; plus, the means of repairing damage must be available to him.
I knew I should find some such facility as a garage, and the only danger was
how thoroughly they had covered their tracks.  In this case, they were too
sure of themselves--Jason Rogers had rid himself of the pertinent sections
in a load of other scrap metal to a local dealer, from whom I retrieved them."

I think I remember Inspector Lestrade, but I don't remember this story.  A
pastiche?

Everyone knows who Lestrade went to, to get his murder cases solved.....

Then this author would be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

Though some elements seem a bit anachronistically recent.

Nope, not Doyle.  Here's another quote from the same book which is,
perhaps, a bit less deceptive, though as everyone noticed, the previous
one already had strong hints of not being Doyle:


  I watched him as his long fingers caressed the much-travelled
envelope and his eyes drew significance from every smudge, every
characteristic of the paper and ink and stamp, and it occurred to
me suddenly that Sherlock Holmes was bored.

  The thought was not a happy one.  No person, certainly no woman,
likes to think that her marriage has lessened the happiness of her
partner.  I thrust the troublesome idea from me, reached up to rub
a twinge from my right shoulder, and spoke with a shade more irritation
than was called for.

  "My dear Holmes, this verges on _deducto_ad_absurdum_.  Were you to
open the envelope and identify the writer, it might just simplify
matters."

Nicholas Meyer?

Not Meyer.

John Dickson Carr.

Not Carr.

Not me either.

From a earlier book than the previous two:

  "Mr Holmes," I said, feeling myself go pink, "may I ask you a question?"
  "Certainly, Miss Russell."
  "How does _The_Valley_of_Fear_ end?" I blurted out.
  "The *what*?"  He sounded astonished.
  "_Valley_of_Fear_.  In _The_Strand_.  I hate these serials, and next
month is the end of it, but I just wondered if you could tell me, well,
how it turned out."
  "This is one of Watson's tales, I take it?"
  "Of course.  It's the case of Birlstone and the Scowrers and John
McMurdo and Professor Moriarty and--"
  "Yes, I believe I can identify the case, although I have often wondered
why, if Conan Doyle so likes pseudonyms he couldn't have given them to
Watson and myself as well."
  "So how does it end?"
  "I havent the faintest notion.  You'll have to ask Watson."
  "But surely you know how the case ended," I said, amazed.
  "The case, certainly.  But what Watson has made of it, I couldn't begin
to guess, except that there is bound to be gore and passion and secret
handshakes.  Oh, and some sort of love interest.  I deduce, Miss Russell;
Watson transforms.  Good day."

I heard a radio play like this once... <ponder>

John Gardner.

Nope.  Unlike everyone guessed so far, the author is a woman. 
Continuing to travel backward in literary time:

   "You have not answered my question, sir," I bit off.
   He ignored my fury.  Worse than that, he seemed unaware of it.
He looked merely bored, as if he wished I might go away.
   "What am I doing here, do you mean?"
   "Exactly."
   "I am watching bees," he said flatly, and turned back to his
contemplation of the hillside.
  Nothing in the man's manner showed a madness to correspond with his
words.  Nonetheless I kept an wary eye on hom as I thrust my book into
my coat pocket and dropped to the ground--a safe distance away from
him--and studied the movement in the flowers before me.
   There were indeed bees, industriously working at stuffing pollen
into those leg sacs of theirs, moving from flower to flower.  I watched,
and was just thinking that there was nothing particularly noteworthy
about these bees when my eyes were caught by the arrival of a peculiarly
marked specimen.  It seemed an ordinary honeybee but had a small red
spot on its back.  How odd--perhaps what he had been watching?  I
glanced at Eccentric, who was now staring intently off into space, and
then looked more closely at the bees, interested in spite of myself.  I
quickly concluded that the spot was no natural phenomenon, but rather
paint, for there was another bee, its spot slightly lopsided, and
another, and then another odd things: a bee with a blue spot as well. 
As I watched, two red spots flew off in a northwesterly direction.  I
carefully observed the blue-and-red spot as it filled its pouches and
saw it take off toward the northeast.
  I thought for a minute, got up, and walked to the top of the hill,
scattering ewes and lambs, and when I looked down at the village [...].
  "I'd say the blue spots are the better bet, if you're trying for
another hive," I told him.  "The ones you've only marked with red are
probably from Mr. Warner's orchard.  The blue spots are farther away,
but they're almost sure to be wild ones."  I dug the book from my
pocket, and when I looked up to wish him a good day he was looking at
me, and the expression on his face took all words from my lips--no mean
accomplishment.  He was, as the writers say but people seldom actually
are, openmouthed.  He looked a bit like a fish, in fact, gaping at me as
if I were growing another head.  He slowly stood up, his mouth shutting
as he rose, but still staring.
  "*What* did you say?"
  "I beg your pardon, are you hard of hearing?"  I raised my voice
somewhat and spoke slowly.  "I said, if you want a new have you'll have
to follow the blue spots, because the reds are sure to be Tom Warner's."
  "I am not hard of hearing, although I am short of credulity.  How do
you come to know of my interests?"
  "I should have thought it obvious," I said impatiently, though even at
that age I was aware tht such things were not obvious to the majority of
people.  "I see paint on your pocket handkerchief, and traces on your
fingers where you wiped it away.  The only reason to mark bees that I
can think of is to enable one to follow them to their hive.  You are
either interested in gathering honey or in the bees themselves, and it
is not the time of year to harvest honey.  Three months ago we had an
unusual cold spell that killed many hives.  Therefore I assume that you
are tracking these in order to replenish your stock."
  The face that looked down at me was no longer fishlike.  In fact, it
resembled amazingly a captive eagle I had once seen, perched in aloof
splendour looking down the ridge of its nose at this lessor creature,
cold disdain staring out from his hooded grey eyes.
  "My God," he said in a voice of mock wonder, "it can think."

I am watching bees too :) Har!

I hope it's not that vampire woman, Anne Rice.

Laurie King.

I *think* that's the name I'm thinking of.

Hmm, when someone gets it right I'll be interested in looking this book 
up, sounds like fun.

Summer 2001 agora 21 has been linked to books 100.

Carole Nelson Douglas.

Sara has it:  Laurie R. King.

I've only read her Holmes books.  The series so far is:
   The Beekeeper's Apprentice
   A Monsterous Regiment of Women
   A Letter of Mary
   The Moor
   Oh Jerusalem
The first two quotes were from "A Letter of Mary", the remainder from "The
Beekeeper's Apprentice".  The first and last books listed are good fun.  For
some reason I omitted to buy "The Moor".  There is, of course, a whole genre
of Sherlock Holmes stories, so I thought it'd be fun to do a quote where the
main character was immediately identifiable, but the author not.  I was
tempted by Larry Millet's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota (yes,
three whole books about Holmes in Minnesota), but they aren't really that
good.  I've never felt he really capture the real Holmes as well as Ms King
does.

There is, of course a Doyle story that describes at length events
that occurred in America, albeit not in Minnesota.

There is?  I've read the Complete Sherlock Holmes, but I don't remember any
story describing his time in America.  One opens with him smoking a cigarette
and blaming it on his trip, but that's it.  An argument could be made that
A Study in Scarlet and The Three (or was it Five?) Orange Pips reflect
knowledge gained while travelling across America.

Its A Study in Scarlet. It doesn't describe any events Holmes or Watson
were involved in in America - but I didn't say it did. 

It's THe Sign of the Four, isn't it?  I think so.  It starts out in England
and then abruptly shifts to America.

Nope. The Sign only visits India, Andaman Islands, and England. 

So I mis-read your original statement, in context. ;/

_The_Valley_of_Fear_ also has much of its action in the US.

I must confess I haven't actually read these.  Just pulled the name out of my
head from memories of shelving at the used bookstore I used to work at. 
(Questions like: "I'm looking for something by that woman who writes Sherlock
Holmes stories" are somewhat easier than the usual: "So I'm looking for this
book, I think it had a blue cover, don't remember the title but it was really
good.")  I remember thinking at the time that they looked interesting, and
these quotes confirmed that impression.

I shall post something tomorrow.

The thing about Manhattan is that everything is here, all mixed together,
that's what I love about it.  Ugly things and beautiful things you didn't even
think could exist.  It's loud and dirty, our apartment is teeny and you have to
walk up eight flights to get to it but we have a fireplace with carved angels,
a leopard-print chaise lounge, Maxfield Parrish prints of nymphs in classical
sunset gardens, pink-damask drapes and silk roses in platform shoes from the
40's and 70's that Izzy has collected.  Izzy grows real roses in pots on the
fire escape.  She loves flowers and is always teaching me the names of
different ones.  She especially likes the ones with really ugly names. 
Anastasia grows oregano, dill, parsley and basil on the fire escape.  She uses
them in her special inter-international recipes.  Anastasia believes you should
never be afraid to mix cultures.  She makes a Japanese-Italianish miso-pesto
sauce for pasta and a bright-pink tandoori tofu stir-fry.  I can tell what
she's making just by sniffing the air.  Sometimes when Anastasia doesn't feel
like cooking, she and Izzy and I go to our favorite restaurants.  We have
golden curried-vegetable samosas and yogurt-cucumber salad under trees filled
with fireflies in the courtyard of our favorite Indian restaurant.  We have
fettuccine at an Italian place where the Mafia guys used to shoot each other
while they were sucking up pasta.  We like the pink and green rice chips and
the rose petals in the salad with the peanut dressing and the ginger tofu at
our Thai place.  There is a Middle Eastern restaurant we go to where you can
get minty tabbouleh and yummy mushy hummus in pita bread for really cheap, and
a funny Russian restaurant with bright murals of animals in people clothes
dancing around cottages in the countryside.  We eat borscht there, and drink
tea from a silver samovar.

(Can you fix your formatting?  Your long lines are wrapping, making
them difficult to read on a standard 80-column display.)

(Not that this would help me much, since I have no clue about the
author.  ;-)

Oh dear.  I'm not quite sure how I managed to do that.

Would it help to repost #31?  If so, I will.

Okay, here's the first quote again, more readable, I hope.  I'll post
another quote soon, in the hopes of eliciting at least *some* guesses.


The thing about Manhattan is that everything is here, all mixed together, 
that's what I love about it.  Ugly things and beautiful things you didn't
even think could exist.  It's loud and dirty, our apartment is teeny and
you have to walk up eight flights to get to it but we have a fireplace
with carved angels, a leopard-print chaise lounge, Maxfield Parrish prints
of nymphs in classical sunset gardens, pink-damask drapes and silk roses
in platform shoes from the 40's and 70's that Izzy has collected.  Izzy
grows real roses in pots on the fire escape.  She loves flowers and is
always teaching me the names of different ones.  She especially likes the
ones with really ugly names.  Anastasia grows oregano, dill, parsley and
basil on the fire escape.  She uses them in her special
inter-international recipes.  Anastasia believes you should never be
afraid to mix cultures. She makes a Japanese-Italianish miso-pesto sauce
for pasta and a bright-pink tandoori tofu stir-fry.  I can tell what she's
making just by sniffing the air.  Sometimes when Anastasia doesn't feel
like cooking, she and Izzy and I go to our favorite restaurants.  We have
golden curried-vegetable samosas and yogurt-cucumber salad under trees
filled with fireflies in the courtyard of our favorite Indian restaurant.
We have fettuccine at an Italian place where the Mafia guys used to shoot 
each other while they were sucking up pasta.  We like the pink and green 
rice chips and the rose petals in the salad with the peanut dressing and 
the ginger tofu at our Thai place.  There is a Middle Eastern restaurant 
we go to where you can get minty tabbouleh and yummy mushy hummus in pita 
bread for really cheap, and a funny Russian restaurant with bright murals 
of animals in people clothes dancing around cottages in the countryside. 
We eat borscht there, and drink tea from a silver samovar.
 
 

Haven't got a guess to offer, but sounds pretty recent.

Indeed, the author is both contemporary and American.

Here's a quote from another work:

Todd had grown up in Northern California in a big ranch house called 
Love Farm, with five brothers and sisters.  His parents had an 
antiquarian book shop called The Book of Love and grew all their own 
organic vegetables.  They encouraged their children to put on plays for 
them after dinner -- TV did not exist at Love Farm.  Todd was the 
oldest, and everyone knew he would become a big star, possibly on the TV 
none of them watched, although his parents often cautioned him about the 
dangers of Hollywood; they had met there on a chewing-gum commercial, 
fallen instantly in love over a single piece of gum (shared), and 
decided to get out while they were still relatively unscarred by the 
business.
    Todd's expansive, loving, freewheeling nature was encouraged.  He 
smoked pot and discussed the Beat poets with his parents; he ran through 
the woods with his brothers and sisters, leading them at games of 
Indians and Indians (no one would be the Cowboys); he wrote the plays 
they performed at night, soliciting the services of girls in the 
neighborhood to inhabit the role of leading lady.  The plays were always 
romantic and ended with a passionate kiss, much to the dismay of Todd's 
younger siblings, who found it all particularly stomach-turning.  But 
Todd's audience and his co-stars enjoyed the romance.  And of course, so 
did Todd, who felt privately that his calling in life was to kiss as 
many girls as possible and let even more watch him doing it so they 
could live vicariously through the ones on screen.

(As soon as we find out what this is from, I think I'm going to find and read
it! :)  

Maybe I should have picked a different author?

These quotes are from someone generally classified as a young adult author. 
I'll post another quote tomorrow.

I knocked and waited.  I knocked again.  My heart was imitating my fist. 
 What if my father answered the door?  After a while I heard footsteps 
and the sound of a peephole opening.  A tall white-haired man, with a 
huge white moustache that curled up at the ends, opened the door.

"Hello," he boomed Swissly.

"Hi," I said. "I'm looking for somebody."

"Who are you looking for?"  He twirled the end of his moustache around 
his finger and glowered at me.

"Irving Rose," I said.

The man's blue eyes looked like they were doing a jig and the rest of 
his body seemed like it would follow any second.  His cheeks turned 
pinker.  "You know Irving Rose!  The genius!  I haven't seen him in 
years."

"He used to live here?"  I asked.

"Yes he did.  In this very apartment.  I moved in when he left."

"Who are you?"  I asked.

"The landlord, Uncle Hansel," the man said.  He bowed so low that I was 
afraid his moustache would tickle me.  Instead all that happened was I 
got a little dizzy from his cologne.  Then he put out his big hand and I 
shook it.  I tried to see behind him, into the apartment where my father 
used to live.

"Could I come in?"  I asked.

"Didn't anyone tell you that children shouldn't go into the apartments 
of strange men!"  Uncle Hansel scolded.

"You're not strange," I reassured him, still trying to see.

"Well, all right, but we'll leave the door wide open and you must run 
out if you feel in the least uncomfortable, dear," Uncle Hansel 
insisted.

I followed him to a small, dim room that smelled of rye bread and 
strawberry jam.  It was filled with wooden furniture carved and painted 
with hearts and flowers.  There were jars of roses, ferns in birdcages, 
a collection of mechanical windup toys and as many cuckoo clocks as 
could fit on the walls.  As I looked at them, they all started chiming, 
and a flock of wooden cuckoos scooted in and out.  I wondered if that 
drove Uncle Hansel crazy, but he seemed to be enjoying it.  He smiled 
proudly at the birds and twirled his moustache.

"Would you like something to eat?"  Uncle Hansel asked.  "Although, come 
to think of it, little girls aren't supposed to accept food from 
strangers."

"You knew my father, though," I said.  I was hungry, and I had a pretty 
good sense of smell -- I bet there really would be rye bread and jam.

"Your father!"  Uncle Hansel exclaimed.  "Why of course!  The genius!  
You look just like him!"

"So could I maybe have a snack?" I asked.

"Of course.  Come with me."

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