Opening paragraphs.............

"I was in deep sleep, alone aboard my houseboat, alone in the
half acre of bed, alone in a sweaty dream of chase, fear, and
monstrous predators.  A shot rang off steel bars.  Another.
I came bursting up out of sleep to hear the secretive sound
of the little bell which rings at my bedside when anyone steps
aboard The Busted Flush.  It was almost four in the morning.
-John MacDonald, The Dreadful Lemon Sky