Quotes from Val McDermid

discreetly flashed its lights.

Carol Jordan had been the perfect boss as far as she was concerned.

evenings before he moved away.' Wells's eyes kept flickering away from the QC to the prisoner. He was clearly uncomfortable

With his stubbled jaw, he resembled a bull seal who'd been washed up by the tide.

Fuck you, Tony. I don't need you. I don't need anyone.

Plath had gassed herself, but that was back before the days of natural gas. Then, stoves and household fires were fuelled by poisonous coal gas. People put their heads in the oven and turned on the gas and they died.

taking a delicious pleasure in the knowledge that she'd never be stupid enough to spend £700 on a handbag or a pen.

An outside toilet occupied one corner, its door half-open. 'He's not been here long enough to accumulate much crap

Daisy's mobile in the pocket of her jeans and rigged it up to the old-fashioned answering machine he'd brought with him, setting them both down close to the stove.

people are shaped by what happens to them and how they respond to it.

You couldn't have everything. At least, not all at the same time.

Right now, there are far more descendants of the Scottish diaspora scattered around the world than there are living in Scotland.

E café con leche para dos,' Berrocal added with a wicked grin at the disappearing back.

The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn. David Russell

And she keeps in touch with Stacey, who isn't averse to doing foreigners for an old friend either.

finally to have a sex life, even if it was deeper in the closet than Narnia.

Nuns don't lie. We simply train ourselves to forget that which we are not supposed to know.

As he often did, he remembered reading the opening of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, where Philip Marlowe itemises his smartest outfit then observes, 'I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

You respect yourself, it makes it harder for others to disrespect you.

It was one of those explanations that explained nothing but sounded impressive. Joseph

Wherever you are, somebody's inflicting horror on another human being. It's just that there are some environments where it's easier to get away with it.

kill. He's a man obsessed and he's determined to

uncontrollable little nests of miscellany. He

Sophie; there was space