Quotes from Jeff Lindsay

Doakes made a kind of gurgling sound that might have been laughter, and Hood nodded as if a thought was actually forming in his bony head. "You think," he said. "Yes, I do," I said. "And it really doesn't hurt; you should try it sometime." Hood

I found myself pondering as I drove, which is never a great idea in Miami's rush-hour traffic, and at the intersection of Le Jeune I very nearly plowed into a Jaguar whose driver had made the perfectly reasonable decision to turn left from the center lane. I swerved around it at the last second, earning myself a loud and operatic chorus of horns and bad words in three languages. I supposed it served me right for criticizing Rita's driving. Somehow

How could I be thinking such absurdities?

Nasty habit, hurling half-digested food around like that. So unsanitary. And this was a guardian of public safety, too.

Put your seat belt on," Deborah told her, and, completely as an afterthought, she turned to me and said, "I guess you can ride along." I almost told her, No, don't bother, I will stay here and feed mosquitoes, but at the last second I remembered that Deborah's record with sarcasm was not good, so I just nodded and buckled up. Deborah

On this night we arrived at the elementary school where the meetings were held with a few minutes to spare, and we sat in the car quietly. Cody liked to wait until just before the meeting started before he went inside, probably because Blending In was still a very unpleasant strain for him.

I have always heard it said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I did not recall anyone ever adding that flattery was actually a good thing, and I admit that I was not terribly pleased.

She said it through a mouthful of pizza and still made it sound as if she was explaining shoelaces to someone with brain damage.

So that meant that as long as the SA could believably present me as a pedophile, it was ipso facto proof that I was also a murderer. And

Deborah called the dispatcher and said, "I've got the Aldovar girl. I'm taking her home," and Samantha muttered, "Big whoopee-shit." Deborah just glanced at her with something that looked like a rictus but was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile, and then she put the car in gear, and I had a little over half an hour to sit in the backseat and picture my life splintering into a million decorative shards.

So I shook my head and flipped the picture back onto my desk. "Very nice picture," I said. "Tell me, Detective, do you think a man can be too handsome?

I stood up, too. I felt like I should say something polite to the two feds, but nothing came to me that didn't make me sound like a puerile lick-spittle, so I just nodded and turned for the door.

Um," I said, and it was good to hear that my customary eloquence had leaped to the fore, "that's going to be, um, kind of difficult—" "Doesn't matter," Captain Matthews said. "I can handle it," Robert said. "I can't," Deborah said, and everyone looked at her. She looked even more surly than she had when I came in, which was quite an achievement.

All right, then: Taking the ipso facto as prima facie, it stood to reason that if I was not a pedophile, I was also not a murderer. Quad erat demonstrandum.

Kraunauer was waiting for me, standing next to the same young and serious agent who had brought us up. "I'm beginning to believe," Kraunauer said, "that Detective Anderson may not like you.

No," Hood said. He leaned over me to the desk and the odor of unwashed detective overlaid with cheap cologne almost made me gag. Hood scooped up the photos and straightened as he stuffed them back into the envelope. With Hood a few feet away from me once more, I managed to breathe again, and since my curiosity was coming to a boil, I used the breath for something practical. "They're all very nice pictures," I said. "But so what?

And what about Lily Anne? What terrible damage would it do to such a bright and sensitive child, growing up with a famous monster for a father? What if it pushed her off the edge and into a life on the Dark Side, along with Cody and Astor? How could I live with the knowledge that I had destroyed such a potentially beautiful life? It

Our complimentary dinner that evening was really quite nice. I have always found that free meals taste just a little bit better, and after two days of the rapacious greed of the Key West economy, this was succulent indeed. And

My car is right over here," Kraunauer said, steering me toward a modest-looking gray sedan with a stylized letter "B" on each hubcap. And in spite of that, it wasn't until I opened the door and saw the walnut-lined instrument panel and soft glove-leather seats that I realized the "B" stood for "Bentley." I slid onto the sweet-smelling seat and tried not to soil it by sweating or thinking impure thoughts.

This is going to be awesome," Jackie gurgled. Deborah did not appear to agree.

At some point, even the greatest misery begins to fade. Life, or what passes for life, plods on in it's own unending weary footsteps, and somehow we plod along with it, if we stay lucky.

Kraunauer jumped in behind the wheel and started the car. It started right up, with a purr like a large cat with a throat full of honey. "All right," he said. "Where are you staying?

Yeah," she said. The doors slid shut and we lurched down. "Nimnut talked to Tiffany Spanos about her sister." I assumed Nimnut meant Deke, so I just nodded. "Tiffany says that Tyler has been into that Goth shit for a while, and then she met this guy at a party who was, like, Goth squared." I

Closer, still careful and quiet, and all is exactly what it should be and then we are at the door of the Mustang. Unlocked—the contemptible little beast has made it far too easy for us and we slide into the backseat so careful-quiet and melt into the unseen darkness on the car's floor—and then we wait. Seconds