Just had to share the first paragraph of the first chapter of Shadowplay:

"Out of the gathering swirls of mist roars the hot black monster, screeching and belching its acrid bilious smoke, a fetor of cordite stench. Thunder and cinders, coal man and boilerman, black cast iron and white-hot friction, rattling on the roadway of steel and olden oak as dewdrops sizzle on the flanks. Foxes slink to lairs. Fawn flit and flee. Hawks in the yews turn and stare." Now that is description!