Quotes from Ann Cleeves

Shetland has always been a place of sanctuary for me. I visited when I dropped out of university, and I just loved it from the minute I got there. It's a bleak but very beautiful place.

I lived in Shetland for a short while in the seventies and have been visiting ever since, so I have lots of useful contacts!

The best place for puffin watching is Sumburgh Head, at the south end of the Shetland mainland. There used to be a lighthouse there, but it's now a visitor centre and gallery; they run a webcam, so you can check on the puffins in advance.

It was much more organized than he would have expected, for a lad with a temper who'd been on the fringes of criminal activity since he was a boy. It came to Joe that perhaps Keane had needed order, to be in control, and the anger came out of chaos and situations he couldn't handle. Three young kids and a flaky wife might do that to you. For the first time, he felt some sympathy for the dead man.

The ritual of tea, Willow thought, is like a liturgy itself, comforting because it's so familiar.

The fair one was the prettier, round and soft, but Magnus noticed the dark one first; her black hair was streaked with luminescent blue.

she thought envy was the most destructive of emotions. It ate away at your guts and your brain and it stopped you thinking straight. Envy and jealousy.

He knew how little praise it took for an insecure person to feel grateful.

oatcake and handed it to her. 'Does Perez ever talk

When Fran had died and people had shared their own stories of grieving he'd wanted to hit them, to scream, I don't care if someone close to you died. Don't use my tragedy to wallow in your own. You cannot come close to knowing how I feel.

I find it difficult to sleep. A sort of daydream, perhaps, reliving old times, trying to capture something of her, while there's still a flavour of her in the house. It's real, you know. A perfume. The shampoo she used, I think. Something else I can't pin down. I know it won't last for long.

We were never soulmates, you know. We never lived in each other's pockets. But in a way, that was why it worked. We were so different that we learned from each other, there was something new to discuss when we did come together. But

Don't be daft, lad. I've worked with more loonies than you've had hot dinners. And I don't just mean the offenders.

Kate looked up at her, hollowed-eyed. She wouldn't be use to failure) No. He tried to fix it himself. He self-medicated with drink.

She'll hate what's happening now. Missing the routine, her days are Woodyard, Coronation Street on television... (She looked up)... You've got to find her.

Why did she feel the need to sneer? Because people who talked about books or pictures or films made her feel ignorant and out of her depth.

I don't hate you. I hate what you've done and what it led to.

There's nothing to fear from the dead. They can't hurt us. And I owe her. If I'd been more patient when I first went to interview her, asked her the right questions, she'd still be alive. She was killed for the secrets she kept. Besides, you're fitter than me. I'd show myself up by not keeping pace.

we all have secrets. We've all done things of which we're ashamed.

Because he knew it was important for the truth to be told.

It seemed to Vera now that the beauty of the eggs, the order, the strange friendships, had been all that had held him together through the depression following her mother's death. Or maybe he'd just been a selfish bastard, with a weird passion for collecting and owning things that would have been better left in the wild.

He was a great family man, a bit too soft-hearted for a policeman, in Vera's opinion; but then she thought Holly was heartless, so perhaps she was never pleased.

Of course. I should have guessed. That jacket comes straight from central casting.

He was a man who'd turned his personal likes and dislikes into a moral code; because he didn't enjoy spending money in the Woodyard cafe, there was something morally suspect about the people who did. The Brethren had been much the same. Matthew thought they'd created a God in their own image, hard, cold and inflexible.