"... And then the murders began."

[Lazerbird]

One night, when the royal bed had been prepared for Ailill and Mebd in Cruachan Fort in Connacht, they engaged in pillow talk. And then the murders began.
Tain Bo Cuailnge

is that the tain ?

[Róisín]

Surely sounds like it! I love the Tain, it is one of the traditional folktales I tell. Nowadays I rarely get the chance to tell it in its entirety (the whole thing is three winter nights long), but I often tell excerpts at the Mediæval Fairs. I’m just delighted that several people here are familiar with the story.

[Yastreb]

The twenty-seven-ton steam engine Lucifer 1004 hurled itself along the railway track cut through the heart of England. Sheep in the rain-drenched fields raised their heads when the smoking monster appeared, but lost their nerve and scattered before the last of the twenty-three coaches racketed by. The train was a non-step express from London to Birmingham, and at 1.15 pm precisely it steamed into New Street Station. And then the murders began.
Ann Huxley, Four Against The Bank Of England.

Upon my return to the United States a few months ago, after the extraordinary series of adventure in the South Seas and elsewhere, of which an account is given in the following pages, accident threw me into the society of several gentlemen in Richmond, Va., who felt deep interest in all matters relating to the regions I had visited, and who were constantly urging it upon me, as a duty, to give my narrative to the public. And then the murders began.
Edgar Allen Poe, The Narrative Of Gordon Arthur Pym

[Lazerbird]

Surely sounds like it! I love the Tain, it is one of the traditional folktales I tell. Nowadays I rarely get the chance to tell it in its entirety (the whole thing is three winter nights long), but I often tell excerpts at the Mediæval Fairs. I’m just delighted that several people here are familiar with the story.

.

how did you get that job ? I didn't know that people still passed on stories like that orally

[Jitter]

Lazerbird, when you hang around here for a while you will learn that Róisín does, and has done, loads of things you wouldn’t imagine!

[RanVor]

.

how did you get that job ? I didn't know that people still passed on stories like that orally

By being an incredible person, I imagine.

[Yastreb]

By being an incredible person, I imagine.

Let me be the first to second that remark!

[Yastreb]

He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass. There was a stream alongside the road and far down the pass he saw a mill beside the stream and the falling water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight. And then the murders began.
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

London, in England, the capital city of the British Empire, is situated upon the banks of the Thames. It is not likely that these facts were unfamiliar to James Abbott McNeill Whistler, a Scottish gentleman born in America and resident in Paris but it is certain that he did not appreciate them. For he settled quietly down to discover a fact which no one had previously observed; namely, that it was very beautiful at night. The man was steeped in Highland fantasy, and he revealed London as Wrapt in a soft haze of mystic beauty, a fairy tale of delicacy and wistfulness. And then the murders began.
Aleister Crowley, Moonchild

[Róisín]

I grew up on a farm full of ancient relatives, with a few even more ancient neighbours. My gran, my greatuncle and one of the neighbours were traditional storytellers and I discovered that I could do it too, so I learned their tales, and have been adding to my store of tales and songs ever since, adding to the set I learned in my youth from the tales of other cultures I have lived in. Most recently (last Saturday) I told traditional stories of bees for International Bee Day at the local Farmers Market, where I have a stall selling plants, flowers, seeds and produce. Other places I have done storytelling include folk festivals, schools, libraries, the Lowender and other cultural festivals. It is mostly practice and word of mouth - the people who need me find me.

[Yastreb]

On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge. And then the murders began.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime And Punishment

It was four o’clock when the ceremony was over and the carriages began to arrive. There had been a crowd following all the way, owing to the exuberance of Marija Berczynskas. The occasion rested heavily upon Marija’s broad shoulders; it was her task to see that all things went in due form, and after the best home traditions; and, flying wildly hither and thither, bowling every one out of the way, and scolding and exhorting all day with her tremendous voice, Marija was too eager to see that others conformed to the proprieties to consider them herself. And then the murders began.
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

[Yastreb]

He sat at his desk, wearily watching the children file out of the room, reflecting that, this term at least, it was reasonable to assume that none of the girls was pregnant. And then the murders began.
Kenneth Cook, Wake In Fright

Jose Antonio Rey Maria had no intention of making history when he rowed out into the Atlantic from the coast of Andalucia in southwest Spain on 30 April 1943. He was merely looking for sardines. And then the murders began.
Ben MacIntyre, Operation Mincemeat

[Róisín]

Wake in Fright is a fine Outback horror novel, very artistic in its way of finding the horror in the boringly ordinary.

[dmeck7755]

Jon HAD BEEN driving all day ... And then the murders began.
(Ailo Gaup - In Search of the Drum)
I had been looking for this book a while and finally found one that was not EXPENSIVE, and written in English.

I think the murder part would sound better if

Jon HAD BEEN driving all day. It was now evening.  He was tired and on his way toward a mountain pass.  A series of dreams about a drum was the reason for this journey ... And then the murders began.

[Yastreb]

Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know. I received a telegram from the asylum: “Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Sincere sympathies. " It doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday. And then the murders began.
Albert Camus, L'Étranger (The Outsider)

As the sun sank lower in the western sky, there was the first hint of smoke in the air, carried on a breeze so faint it barely stirred the dust. And then the murders began.
Neil Hanson, The Dreadful Judgement

[thegreyarea]

There were no windows in the Brin 2 facility – rotation meant that ‘outside’ was always ‘down’, underfoot, out of mind. The wall screens told a pleasant fiction, a composite view of the world below that ignored their constant spin, showing the planet as hanging stationary-still off in space: the green marble to match the blue marble of home, twenty light years away. And then the murders began.

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Time

(this one looks promising...   )

The island in the middle of the frozen lake, the home of the great Polish duke, was lit by cold moonlight. And then the murders began.

The Widow Queen, Elżbieta Cherezińska

(And this one too!)

BTW...

Spoiler: show

I Just got the last one - free - from Tor ebook club. So I'll suggest (again) to anyone interested in SF and Fantasy to sign up to this club, and get monthly free books. Yes, they give you some freebies so you consider buying more, but that's up to you. Meanwhile one can amass a nice collection of interesting ebooks, DRM free, with no cost. (And I know we cannot advertise here, but I asked one Admin the first time I mentioned it (on the "books" thread) and since the service is legal and free it was considered acceptable under Forum rules)