It was pitch dark when the mosquito whine of the alarm irritated me awake.

The only sensor he missed was the one on the stainless steel rat; that shot caromed off its metal back with a high mosquito whine.

Far removed from suspect umpires and the mosquito whine of cell phones in the stands, away from her grunting opponents and flashbulbs popping in the front rows, the new-age Jennifer Capriati is as mellow as mood lighting.

As though to contradict him, a shrill mosquito whine sounded near Kirk's head.

The mosquito whine shrilled.

But to many others it is the mosquito whine of a thousand two-stroke engines propelling teenagers on small scooters pell-mell through otherwise impenetrable thickets of traffic.

He was immediately struck by the quiet: the only sound was the distant mosquito whine of a jet from Honnington RAF base.

But when he thought about turning back, a mosquito whine at the back of his brain started: a mental tug that had led him to stand on a rocky face above a dead lake on a blasted world.

A shrill drone, a mosquito whine, and then there stood on the desert a nephil with wings of flaming red and eyes like garnets.