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Opening lines from recently published books
''The Sicilian sky was on fire when HMS Phaeton dropped anchor off Palermo at noon. Inside the stifling bowels of the frigate's only stateroom, the young bride trickled more vinegar into her silk handkerchief and dabbed it weakly over her face and wrists.'' From The Elgin Affair: The Abduction of Antiquity's Greatest Treasures and the Passions It Aroused, the story of the marble sculptures that once adorned the Parthenon, by THEODORE VRETTOS (Arcade, $26.95)
''Dorcas hated the fens. A no-man's-land once you got beyond the pub, whose cold windowpanes behind her glowed like a row of golden fingerprints, and the only other lights were those of the occasional car moving along the A17.'' From The Case Has Altered (Holt, $24), the 13th MARTHA GRIMES novel to feature Scotland Yard superintendent Richard Jury
