"... And then the murders began."

[RanVor]

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. And then the murders began.
Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

(I know this is more than one sentence, but this entire paragraph is just SO GOOD!)

[Yastreb]

I tossed my backpack in a corner of the studio and high-fived Rodney on the way out. And then the murders began.
Carrie Vaughan, Kitty And The Midnight Hour

Beige, sandy mountains surrounded the ground, which appeared to be worlds away from civilisation, although we were only kilometres from Baluchistan's capital, Quetta. A large crowd had arrived and most gathered on the hillside, offering as it did a perfect view of the pitch, which was rough, stony and grassless; hardly a typical match venue. And then the murders began.
Emma Levine, A Game Of Polo With A Headless Goat

[thegreyarea]

Two broad assumptions underlie this book: (1) that writing is a rational activity, and (2) that it is a valuable activity.
And then the murders began.

Thomas S. Kane, The Oxford Guide to Writing

MADRID IS FULL OF BOYS NAMED PACO, which is the diminutive of the name Francisco, and there is a Madrid joke about a father who came to Madrid and inserted an advertisement in the personal columns of El Liberal which said: PACO MEET ME AT HOTEL MONTANA NOON TUESDAY ALL IS FORGIVEN PAPA and how a squadron of Guardia Civil had to be called out to disperse the eight hundred young men who answered the advertisement. And then the murders began.

Ernest Hemingway, The Capital of The World

[Yastreb]

It is cold at six-forty in the morning of a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad. And then the murders began.
Frederick Forsyth, The Day Of The Jackal

There were no stars that night on the bush airstrip, nor any moon; just the West African darkness wrapping around the scattered groups like wet velvet. And then the murders began.
Frederick Forsyth, The Dogs Of War

[dmeck7755]

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henrey who was a farmer and Aunt Em who was the farmer's wife...and then the murders began

(The Wizard of OZ - L Frank Baum)

A mile above Oz, the witch balanced on the wind's forward edge, as if she was a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling away in the turbulent air..and then the murders began

(Wicked: Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West - Gregory Maguire)

Spoiler: show

I have read both, the first is dated, and the second is good.  The play for the second or the movie for the first are not like the books

[Yastreb]

On Wednesday, October 5, 1969, a formation of unidentified flying objects was picked up on the sophisticated radar screens of an early warning station at Thule, Greenland. And then the murders began.
John A. Keel, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse

Now we had been five days in the boats, and in all this time made no discovering of land. Then upon the morning of the sixth day came there a cry from the bosun, who had the command of the lifeboat, that there was something which might be land afar upon our larboard bow; but it was very low lying, and none could tell whether it was land or but a morning cloud. Yet, because there was the beginning of hope within our hearts, we pulled wearily towards it, and thus, in about an hour, discovered it to be indeed the coast of some flat country. And then the murders began.
William Hope Hodgson, The Boats Of The Glen Carrig

[Róisín]

Now that is a fine and elegantly crafted horror tale. Have you ever seen a very early Hitchcock movie ‘In the Doldrums’? I think these tales were his inspiration for that movie - I have never forgotten that scene of the rowboat pulling away into the fog, with the shape of the rower being…..not quite as it should be. And I don’t much care for horror movies.

[Yastreb]

"Look here, Burger," said Kennedy, "I do wish that you would confide in me." And then the murders began.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The New Catacomb

It is hard luck on a young fellow to have expensive tastes, great expectations, aristocratic connections, but no actual money in his pocket, and no profession by which to earn any. The fact was that my father, a good, sanguine, easy-going man, had such confidence in the wealth and benevolence of his bachelor elder brother, Lord Southerton, that he took it for granted that I, his only son, would never be called upon to earn a living. And then the murders began.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Brazilian Cat

[thegreyarea]

“The marvellous thing is that it's painless,” he said. “That’s how you know when it starts.” And then the murders began.

Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro

The strange thing was, he said, how they screamed every night at midnight. I do not know why they screamed at that time. We were in the harbor and they were all on the pier and at midnight they started screaming. We used to turn the searchlight on them to quiet them. That always did the trick. And then the murders began.

Ernest Hemingway, On the Quai at Smyrna


(Hemingway's short stories work really well for this, don't you agree?)

(and Róisín, I remember something like that, and how that showed Hitchcok's genious!)

[Yastreb]

Outside, where dawn was just dispelling the fog-wisps from the South Pacific waters, the sea was calm, but a typhoon was raging in the cabin of the Saucy Wench. Most of the thunder was supplied by Captain Harrigan--vociferous oratory, charged with brimstone and sulphur, punctuated with resounding bangs of a hairy fist on the table across which he was bellowing damnation and destruction at Raquel O'Shane, who screamed back at him. Between them they were making so much noise they did not hear the sudden shouting that burst forth on deck. And then the murders began.
Robert E. Howard, She Devil

I was born in 1946. The Goons first appeared on the radio when I had just turned five. And then the murders began.
Humphrey Carpenter, Spike Milligan: The Biography

Spoiler: show

It seems appropriate to quote from The Moriarty Murder Mystery (Series 8, Episode 17)

SEAGOON: Now why is this body lying down?
GRYTPYPE: He’s been murdered.
SEAGOON: Badly?
GRYTPYPE: No very well, he’s dead.
SEAGOON: Hold on a minute. What? A fake bullet-hole? What does this mean?
GRYTPYPE: He was murdered by a fake bullet.
SEAGOON: Gad, what a hellish way to die! Did you see his assailant?
GRYTPYPE: No, he had his coat buttoned up. But the murderer was a fuel man with a ling hat and farglow boots. And...
SEAGOON: Yes?
GRYTPYPE: He went that-a way.

[Yastreb]

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side, he lurched across the yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer from the barrel in the scullery, and made his way up to bed, where Mrs. Jones was already snoring. And then the murders began.
George Orwell, Animal Farm

THE rue du Coq d'Or, Paris, seven in the morning. A succession of furious, choking yells from the street. Madame Monce, who kept the little hotel opposite mine, had come out on to the pavement to address a lodger on the third floor. Her bare feet were stuck into sabots and her grey hair was streaming down. And then the murders began.
George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London

[thegreyarea]

She had been running for four days now, a harum-scarum tumbling flight through passages and tunnels. She was hungry, and exhausted, and more tired than a bodt could stand, and each successive door was proving harder to open. After four days of flight , she had found a hiding place, a tiny stone burrow, under the world, where she would be safe, or so she prayed, and at last she slept. And then the murders began.

Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

(Seriously, no lack of murders on this one...)

His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before. That is, not in real life. He had seen it many times on the hyper-video, and occasionally in tremendous three-dimensional newscasts covering an Imperial Coronation or the opening of a Galactic Council. Even though he had lived all his life on the world of Synnax, which circled a star at the edges of the Blue Drift, he was not cut off from civilization, you see. At that time, no place in the Galaxy was. And then the murders began.

Isaac Asimov. Foundation

(did I use this one already? Sorry if I did, but it's almost midnight and I'm to lazy to go back and hunt for my own posts   )
(BTW, nice choices, Yastreb!)
 

[Jitter]

Sorry to interrupt your murder spree, but
https://lithub.com/first-lines-of-classic-novels-if-no-one-had-childcare/?fbclid=IwAR2AZ2_UusxkmPa6yN2s3kuM1DEbOpJfnUj7f4qsTIQfFPTA7kqycBcwY9Y&fs=e&s=cl

[thegreyarea]

Sorry to interrupt your murder spree, but
https://lithub.com/first-lines-of-classic-novels-if-no-one-had-childcare/?fbclid=IwAR2AZ2_UusxkmPa6yN2s3kuM1DEbOpJfnUj7f4qsTIQfFPTA7kqycBcwY9Y&fs=e&s=cl

Thanks! It's very funny. (perhaps even inspiring...)

Meanwhile, back to our murder spree...

The Galactic Empire Was Falling.
It was a colossal Empire, stretching across millions of worlds from arm-end to armend of the mighty multi-spiral that was the Milky Way.
Its fall was colossal, too – and a long one, for it had a long way to go.
And then the murders began.

Isaac Asimov. Foundation and Empire

The First Galactic Empire had endured for tens of thousands of years.
It had included all the planets of the Galaxy in a centralized rule, sometimes tyrannical, sometimes benevolent, always orderly.
Human beings had forgotten that any other form of existence could be.
And then the murders began.

Isaac Asimov. Second Foundation

(and here we complete the original trilogy. Both quotes are from the respective prologues - and not from the beginning of the first chapter, as usual - because I think they sound really good, and ominous, that way...)

[Lazerbird]

The stranger came out of the sea like a water ghost, barefoot and wearing the scars of his journey. He walked as if drunk through the have of mist that clung like spidersilk to Seiiki. And then the murders began
The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon

Later in the same fields he stood at night when eels moved through the grass like hatched fears. And then the murders began.
The Book of Eels - Patrick Svensson 

because is there anything more terrifying than a horde of murderous terrestrial eels ?