Quotes from Robert Crais

Pike's mouth twitched, and Cole wondered if Larkin had noticed that Pike never laughed or smiled. As if the part of a man who could feel that free was dead in Pike, or buried so deep that only a twitch could escape.

Somewhere between Burger King and now, the Syrian's sleight-of-hand security system worked. Pike wasn't here. I never doubted, not once, he would find me. My task was to stay alive until it happened or I could escape on my own. The United States Army sent me to something called Ranger School. The Ranger motto was sua sponte. It meant you're on your own, asshole. Okay.

Humor. I am my own best audience. Meryl

With her sunglasses off, her eyes were red, and Cole wondered if she had been crying. She caught him looking, and flashed the crooked smile. It was smart and inviting, and could never be made by someone who had just been crying, but there it was. Cole thought, This kid has had plenty of practice hiding herself.

His face went sullen and his breathing grew loud. He had more of the Hamm's. He had more of the Hamm's again. My neck was hurting so bad I thought it would go into spasm.

I looked at the Pinocchio clock, and gave it Stan Laurel. "Isn't this a fine development?" Pinocchio's eyes went from side to side, but he didn't say anything. He never does.

The tall man's pistol suddenly appeared in front of Orlato's face, locked dead center between his eyes. The flat copper snouts of its bullets slept in their cylinder crypts. "Elvis

I left them to their lives and walked out into the sun. You want to do the right thing, but sometimes there is no right thing to be done.

Pike put down the phone, pushed the magazine into the gun, then jacked the slide and set the safety. If Pike could ever know bliss, it filled him now, but he showed nothing. He had them. He had a line that might bring him to Meesh, and then he would clear the field. All these bastards trying to kill this girl, this one girl, all of them ganged against her, and he would clear the field, but not for justice. It would be punishment. Punishment was justice.

Is Dolan there?" "What's it to you?" "I want to talk to her." "Haven't seen her. You wanna know what I heard Krantz say?" "I'm not going to like this, am I?" "Krantz says you were probably in on it with that bastard, Pike. He says if he can tie you into it, maybe you and Pike can do the IV tango together." Williams

The Police Administration Building was a beautiful glass-and-concrete building with a triangular atrium that looked like the prow of a crystal ship. The cops who worked there called it the Boat. The opposite side looked like a Borg mothership. Furth

Pike made the Corolla for an early '90s model. It was dark brown in color with mismatched wheels and rusty acne on the trunk. Pike copied the plate number. He stayed between three and four cars behind, only tightening up when the Corolla beat him through an intersection and traffic began to slow.

I said, "What is this place?" "Old date farm. This building here is where they used to box up the shit and load it onto trucks." Rows

The new guy smiled and put out a hand the size of a king crab. "Brad Carter. You're Mr. Cole?" "Yes, sir. Elvis Cole." He clutched my hand like a king crab, too. "Thanks

Pike chambered a round into his shotgun. "No," he said. "They're trapped with us.

Khat runner. Check out these teeth. Fuckers get green teeth from chewing the khat. Ain't this green rotten?" "Stop

His hair was a quarter-inch short, his skin was cooked dark, and his knuckles were scarred and coarse. Hydeck

THE CHOKE HOLD cut off blood to a man's brain, putting him to sleep like a laptop when its battery is low. It was an effective way to subdue a person, though sometimes that person did not wake up. Pike sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for the man to wake.

Pike held out Karen's photograph. "Have you seen this woman?" "No. I am sorry." Every word like that. Without contractions.

It should die down in a few days." "And if it doesn't?" Truly shrugged. "Enjoy the idolatry. You earned it, my friend. You really came through for us." A tall thin guy from one of the national networks yelled, "Hey, Sherlock Holmes! Are you really that good or did you just get lucky?" I said, "Some idol." Truly laughed and I climbed into my car and drove away. Slowly. I almost ran over a cameraman.

Chen didn't get back to the lab until almost six, only to find Harriet haunting the gun room like the Ghost of Christmas Future. Pike was certain to be impatient with the delay and no doubt would be growing angrier and angrier—at John.

people over the years

Lucy was beaming. "We just turned on the news and there you were. You and Jonathan Green. Was it exciting?" "Being with Jonathan?" "No, silly! They said you made some kind of break-through that might turn the case around. Jonathan said that you were the finest investigator he's ever worked with." I tried to look blasé and stifled a yawn. "Oh, that." She punched me in the arm. "Be serious.

Pike dug his index finger into the soft tissue beneath the man's collarbone where twenty-six individual nerves joined into the brachial plexus. The supraclavicular nerve, which carried information into the spinal cord, ran close to the skin at that point, following a groove in the bone. When Pike crushed the nerve bundle hard into the bone, the entire brachial plexus fired a pain signal not unlike that from a root canal without novocaine.