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

"I was following Derry Welfram at a prudent fifty paces when he stumbled, fell face down on the wet tarmac and lay still.  I stopped, watching, as nearer hands stretched to help him up, saw the doubt, the apprehension, the shock flower in the opening mouths of the faces around him.  The word that formed in consequence in my own brain was violent, of four letters and unexpressed."

-Dick Francis, The Edge