Clown Town

Catherine had long come to the conclusion that removing the aroma of stale tobacco would be a three-step process. First you'd have to steam-clean the soft furnishings, then paint the walls, then knock the building down and scatter the rubble.

And while I’m famously tolerant of all manner of outrageous impositions, if there’s one thing I will not do, it’s suffer fucking consequences.

Bold talk from a woman whose idea of a master plan was to use the Thursday Murder Club as a hit squad.

He’d suffer being squeezed—squoze?—if it would settle his future.

Avril had the sense they say comes with your last moments; not so much that she saw her life flashing before her eyes, but more that she felt it behind her, all its pent-up force propelling her into whatever would happen next.

It’s not the bullet with my name on it that frightens me. It’s the one addressed “to whom it may concern.

They weren’t poor the way poor people were poor

No, Diana’s like me. She enjoys rewards commensurate, not to her achievements, but to her expectations. Because she and I, we’re insiders. Always have been. Brought up to it, dined out on it, slept in all of its bedrooms.

River once described Lamb as a coiled sponge. That was his current mode. At any moment, without warning, he might not do anything.

When Tavener invited you to trust her, count your spoons. And if you didn't bring spoons, check she hasn't planted one on you, to have you arrested for theft later.

She was starting to think Ash might not be as annoying as first and also second through twentieth impressions had suggested.

There is a topic being left unaddressed, and Belwether is starting to feel his way around its edges, like a man sizing up a hedge, clippers in hand. To such a man, the existence of an article like a microcassette tape, contents unknown, might represent a challenge: Is this to be incorporated into the topiary, or clipped away, bagged and despatched? Soon enough, he feels, the answer will make itself known.

... and Louisa watched another car arriving, this one as unmarked as the cop cars, but more so.

Sisyphean. How long it would take the current

Our newest recruit, and already she's as welcome as a banjo on a soundtrack

Their food arrived, in portions small enough that Louisa hoped the bill was a stinker. So maybe this was the life she was missing: being overcharged for undersized meals, while the waitstaff filled your glass before you were ready

But the way of the data warrior is a lonely one

In some circumstances, the knowledge that applying a match would destroy both parties might be a source of comfort, but the concept of mutually assured destruction didn't apply when one of the two considered himself fireproof. The time would come when Judd would act. He didn't even have to see advantage for himself in the prospect. He simply had to be bored.

trust me, it says The Secret Voices: A Hidden History of Deep Cover Lives. By M. H. Leggaty.” “Okay.” “And there’s no record that a book with that title exists. And the author’s untraceable.

mentors taught you, what CC had told her, Love them or hate them, they’re yours for good. You’re bound to them by barbed wire, and no point trying to escape it. He’d said all this more than once. Their sins are yours, because you mould them.