Quotes from John Sandford

A battalion was apparently a mid-level unit, in size, and his particular battalion had apparently been deeply enmeshed in combat in Iraq. Dannon had gotten good efficiency marks, but Lucas wasn't sure how exactly to evaluate them. In his own bureaucracy, good efficiency marks were subject to interpretation by insiders, and could damn with praise a little too faint.

Means headed for Des Moines with the hair sample and Lucas called Robertson, who was working north of I-80. "I got nothing, nothing, and nothing. I thought I had something for a minute, but it turned out to be nothing," he said. "More'n I got," Lucas said. "I never even thought I had something. What'd you think you had?

That's the end of it?" "Not quite. I've invited Grant to a little confab in my office tomorrow, with Porter Smalls. Mitford will be there, and her campaign manager, and I'd like you to sit in. And I'll get Rose Marie to come along." "Why is that?" "Because I want everybody clear on what happened here, and why everybody did what they did—including you and me," the governor said.

Birkmann waved that away. I'm not religious. Going to church - it's a magic show, in my opinion. Don't tell the Chamber of Commerce I said that. I'm not talking about religion. I'm talking about God, Virgil said. I'm a Lutheran minister's kid, and, believe me, there's a difference between a religion and God. I sorta cut out the middleman.

cabin, they could hear

Her father had warned Letty against going for rides with highway patrolmen. "When it comes to driving, they're a little . . . out there, I guess you'd say. 'Fast' isn't good enough for them.

Smalls looked around the office and asked, "Where do you want me to stick the shovel?

Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills,'" Virgil said, quoting Napoleon Dynamite.

One of the trucks he passed in the parking lot had a bumper sticker that asked, "Got Hollow Points?" Another said: "Heavily Armed . . . and easily pissed." A third one: "Point and Click . . . means you're out of ammo.

To the clothing, he added a pump shotgun and a box of shells. A Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol went in his Tahoe's gun safe with two extra magazines. If he needed more than fifty-one shots at somebody, he deserved to die.

Only the criminally stupid or naïve assumed that the other side was less clever.

David Birkmann? I can't believe it. It's like saying a duck did it.

The house was larger than it looked from the outside, and elegant, and smelled lightly of cigar smoke. A side hallway led toward what must've been two or three bedrooms. A library featured pop fiction and a big octagonal poker table with a green baize surface; the living room was cluttered with couches and chairs and small tables. An oversized television hung from one wall.

The bird came after Lucas again and he swatted at it with his gun, smacked it hard, two or three small feathers flying.

chair and read a story in a four-year-old Cosmo about how women can keep their men interested by learning the latest in blow-job techniques—the techniques themselves were described blow by blow, so to speak, by a panel of successful New York advertising and media women. I was not only convinced, I was supportive.

to TV people and sometimes these TV guys need to hustle a deal or hustle up some money, and Pilot's women

Well, you gotta keep up," Kidd said. He paused, looked up at the sky, then said, "You know, I take that back. Really, maybe you don't need to keep up. Maybe keeping up is for idiots.

Fireflies weren't supposed to last this deep into the summer, Virgil knew. Maybe he was getting a signal from God, from one of God's bugs. But what would a yellow light mean? Caution? A little late, huh? —

Atheists, he came to believe, generally worked in man-made cubes, with blackboards and computers and fast food. They didn't believe in wonders because they never saw any.

They got three cooks there; we call them Hepatitis A, B, and C. That burger's gonna hit the bottom of the bucket in one piece, if you know what I mean.

Sometimes the world does seem like it's going nuts. Then, you go to a party like this one, with your friends, and you realize how wonderful everything really is. With all the bullshit—it's still wonderful." They

I'm a picture of abject fear. If I had my choice between flying to El Paso or getting a colonoscopy, I'd have to think about it.

like an ink drop falling into a coal cellar.

HADEN WAS WEARING SWEATPANTS and a T-shirt, with flip-flops, his hair wet from a shower, and Virgil said, "I don't want to hear about it. I'm so horny the light socket ain't safe.