Joseph Conrad
- Heart of Darkness
The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.
Daphne du Maurier
- The Scapegoat
I left the car by the side of the cathedral, and then walked down the steps into the Place des Jacobins. It was still raining hard. It had not once let up since Tours, and all I had seen of the countryside I loved was the gleaming surface of the route nationale, rhythmically cut by the monotonous swing of the windscreen wiper.
Michael White
- The Art of Murder
She came running down the street screaming at the top of her voice. As she ran, commuters heading for Whitechapel tube station moved out of the way thinking she was a madwoman. But she was not mad; she was simply terrified. She had just seen something that would make the strongest stomach somersault. Her name was Helena Lutsenko, a Ukrainian immigrant.
Peter James
- Dead like you
We all make mistakes, all of the time. Most trivial stuff, like forgetting to return a phone call, or to put money in a parking meter, or to pick up milk at the supermarket. But sometimes - luckily very rarely - we make the big one. The kind of mistake that could cost us our life. The kind of mistake Rachel Ryan made. And she had a long time to reflect on it. If... she had been less drunk. If... it hadn't been so sodding freezing cold.
Stieg Larsson
- The girl with the dragon tattoo
It happened every year, was almost a ritual. And this was his eighty-second birthday. When, as usual, the flower was delivered, he took off the wrapping paper and then picked up the telephone to call Detective Superintendent Morell who, when he retired, had moved to Lake Siljan in Dalarna. They were not only the same age, they had been born on the same day - which was something of an irony under the circumstances.
Sebastian Faulks
- A week in December
Five o'clock and freezing. Piledrivers and jackhammers were blasting into the wasteland by the side of West Cross Route in Shepherd's Bush. With a bare ten months to the scheduled opening of Europe's largest urban shopping centre, the sand-covered site was showing only skeletal girders and joists under red cranes, though a peppermint facade had already been tacked on the eastward side.
Dan Brown
- The Lost Symbol
The secret is how to die. Since the beginning of time, the secret had always been how to die. The thirty-four-year-old initiate gazed down at the human skull cradled in his palms. The skull was hollow, like a bowl, filled with bloodred wine. Drink it, he told himself. You have nothing to fear.
John Verdon
- Think of a Number
'Where were you?' said the old woman in the bed. 'I had to pee, and no one came.' Unruffled by her nasty tone, the young man stood at the foot of the bed, beaming. 'I had to pee,' she repeated, more vaguely, as if she were now unsure what the words meant. 'I have good news, Mother,' said the man. 'Soon everything will be all right. Everything will be taken care of.' 'Where do you go when you leave me?' Her voice again was sharp, queruluous.
James Becker
- The Messiah Secret
The nine men had made slow progress ever since they'd left the last village and started the final stage of their long climb. Now, the simple stone houses were a distant ghostly monochrome in the grey light of pre-dawn.
Kevin Lewis
- Scent of a Killer
At first he thought he must be dreaming. Then, as the fog clouding his mind began to lift, he started to feel uneasy. Finally, with the full reality of his situation slowly becoming clear, Raymond Chadwick started to panic.
Dan Brown
- Digital Fortress
It is said that in death, all things become clear; Ensei Tankado now knew it was true. As he clutched his chest and fell to the ground in pain, he realized the horror of his mistake. On his finger was an engraved golden ring. For an instant, the markings glimmered in the Andalusian sun. Ensei Tankado knew it was the last light he would ever see.
Iain Banks
- Transition
I think I have been very clever in doing what I have done, in landing myself where I am. However, a lot of us are prone, as I am now, to think we've been quite clever, are we not? And too often in my past that feeling of having been quite clever has preceded the uncomfortable revelation that I have not been quite clever enough.
Tony Ash
- Need for speed
So I sit here and I type, type, type, I want to eradicate the recurring mistakes like typing 'e' instead of 'i' but I don't care, I like to type, I want to type and all the mistakes make it more interesting. I could go on but it's that time again, to go on that site with the quotes from the Godfather and Fight Club and weird historical figures, and type, type, type to increase my speed, does it work? Bloody right it does.
Colin Dexter
- The Secret of Annexe 3
Chief Inspector Morse seldom allowed himself to be caught up in New Year celebrations, so the murder inquiry in the festive hotel had a certain appeal. It was crime worthy of the season. The corpse was still in fancy dress, and hardly a single guest at the Haworth had registered under a genuine name.
Daniel Silva
- The English assassin
Marguerite Rolfe was digging in her garden because of the secrets she'd found hidden in her husband's study. It was late to be working in the garden, well past midnight by now. The spring thaw had left the earth soft and moist, and her spade split the soil with little effort, allowing her to progress with minimal noise. For this she was grateful. Her husband and daughter were asleep in the villa, and she didn't want to wake them.
Christiaan Barnard
- The Donor
"Louis, just think what it will mean if we could keep a donor alive, I want to have a ward full of human beings with dead brains, but with their vital organs very much alive and healthy." Kapinsky sensed the excitement in his friend's voice. "Slow down, Rodney, we have a long way to go before you will have a ward with the living dead." He paused. "But it certainly is worth thinking of the scientific possibilities."
Bryan Forbes
- A song at twilight
The Fat Boy had not spent that Christmas in London for pleasure. Unlike Baudelaire his eyes were not drawn upward to the stars when he walked the streets, and the festive season left him unmoved. Murder was the only gift he ever gave, death was the only gift he was likely to receive.
Bryan Forbes
- The Endless Game
In the ordinary course of events Calder denied himself any form of pity for others, yet that morning he was uncharacteristically moved when he found a colony of spiders in his bath. He counted seven, seemingly all identical, clinging to the tub's vertical sides like stranded mountaineers. Sinking to his knees, he examined them at close range: did they really climb up through the plug hole, or was that just an old wives' tale?
Sara Paretsky
- Tunnel Vision
When the power went I was finishing a ten-page report. My office turned black; the computer ground to a halt. Helpless, I watched my words fade to a ghostly outline that glowed on the screen before vanishing, like the mocking grin of the Cheshire Cat. I cursed myself and the building owners impartially. If I'd stuck with my mother's old Olivetti instead of going electronic I could have finished my work by candlelight and left.
Steven Kelly
- The War Artist
He woke to find himself lying on his back. His head was held immobile in some kind of vice, his jaw braced with a metal clamp attached to his teeth. His torso and limbs were strapped tightly to the cold, hard surface beneath him. He could feel nothing, realised quickly that they had injected his face with a local anaesthetic. He was strangely relieved: there would be no more pain.
