Ridiculous," he said breathlessly. "You ought to give up detecting and try fantasy writing.

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.

A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that "individuality" is the key to success.

The act of shopping for what he needed, and of setting up the bare necessities for himself, had lulled Strike back into the familiar soldierly state of doing what needed to be done, without question or complaint.

There are always loose ends in real life.

Women liked Strike—she had come to realize that over the months they had worked together. She had not understood the appeal when she had started working for him. He was so very different from Matthew.