God, I swear I’ve never seen a more nervous bunch of people. Like a bunch of rats in a science lab.

Practically every fella that breaks the law has a danged good reason, to his own way of thinking, which makes every case exceptional, not just one or two. Take you, for example.

The whole thing becomes like this evil enchantment from a fairy tale, but you’re made to believe the spell can never be broken.

Her immediate impulse was one of self-preservation. She was tied up in this somehow, she didn’t know why or how, but there was something waiting for her on the other side of this crowd.

He began as a minor imitator of Fitzgerald, wrote a novel in the late twenties which won a prize, became dissatisfied with his work, stopped writing for a period of years. When he came back...

When it came to watching television, Ted was ambidextrous.

Sometimes a girl’s gotta be bad to be good.Murder in the Dog Park

Listen, we got two stiffs and a river of red in a villa in Herne Bay…

Drug addicts had their drugs. Alcoholics had their bottles. Serial killers had their murders.

A pawn only needs to move five spaces to become the queen” – from Bhendi Bazaar

Someone’s head in a bucket on the hood of my car.

There are times when you have to commit a crime to prevent an even bigger one. At least, that’s what I tell myself when I can’t sleep at night.

Flowers are fragile and ephemeral…Even if you meant to protect them with a surrounding fence from wind and rain, they would die without sunlight…and a spindly fence has no power against a strong wind. –...

No sun cream or condoms, just in case you’re looking at the lady-boys. There’s plenty of AIDS lingering about and every STD you can imagine.

My inner goddess confirms that staring at a beautiful/rich/powerful face is the basis of True Love.

The good thing about the aristocracy – German or English – was that they were easily traced, Mirabelle thought.

Well, on paper, yes, but between us women . . . absolutely not.

Marcie was found in her apartment late last night uh… no longer alive.” My bedside manner has never been my strong suit.Dr. Taggart looked distressed and began to ramble incoherently for a minute. I let...

My philosophy in life is to eat, drink and investigate – in that order.

…Special for you.

I’ve sometimes regretted the women I’ve been.There have been so many: daughter, sister, cop, tough broad, several kinds of whore, jilted lover, ideal wife, heroine, killer.I’ll provide the truth of them all, inasmuch as I’m...

The laws governed people’s happiness. To be lawless was to be happy.

Kara knew je only recognised t and a on a string and he was nothing more than a sleazy pupeeter

I came, I saw, I concurred…

Her aunt and uncle worked fifteen hours a day in their desperate attempt to keep the corner shop in profit, and their Sundays were marked by exhaustion. The moral code by which they lived was...

Do you want to risk it?

Mee and Ow sat in the shade of a mango tree and were doing their make-up. Both of them wore gloves that reached all the way up to their elbows, to keep the tropical sun...

The battle rages everyday. In the Arena of God

Il ne me reste plus qu’un jour à vivre après en avoir volé quinze milliards à la mort. Plus qu’un. Deux au grand maximum.

We pay people and reward them for greed and sleaze . When a sex tape gets made a star is born with a publicity agent on speed dial a six figure pay cheque and a...

Will you pipe down for a minute? Naturally she was dead since I work at a cemetery. Her face struck a chord though. So, I rummaged around in the old Rory memory bank, and Emily...

There was a ringing in his ears, like a dead phone line that he couldn’t hang up on.

I go where I want to go, I do what I want to do, and I am beholden to no one.

Never patronize your readers. That means don’t talk down to them.

He said when the Lord made people He made them all the same for starters. But life marks people. If you know the way, you can read them like maps.

Non mi resta che un giorno di vita, dopo averne sottratti quindicimila alla morte, me ne resta appena un altro ancora. Al massimo due

Al… You ever kill anybody? In the United States? Because I know you mean it and everything, but I know these guys better than I know you. They’re soldiers, that’s all. No questions, no time...

At that exact moment, 6-0-0, the sun climbed over the skyline of oaks, revealing its full summer angry-god self. Its reflection flared across the river toward our house, a long, blaring finger aimed at me...

You have the Answer. Just get quiet enough to hear it. ~Pat Obuchowski

The Professor is coming…

Either I’ve got a wart on my nose they find curious, or I’ve grown a tail, Albie Merani muttered to himself. Just then he thought. I’d better get a move on, got work to do....

…We were pulling into the next station, when the woman suddenly got to her feet and made a move to squeeze past me. As her knees made contact with mine, she turned towards me. Her...

I started out a human being. But pretty much had all the humanity wrung out of me after passing the Bar and practicing law for ten years. Not sure what I am now.

I ought to warn you, dear, he can get rather wild when he’s hungry

The viewpoint character in each story is usually someone trapped in a living nightmare, but this doesn’t guarantee that we and the protagonist are at one. In fact Woolrich often makes us pull away from...

His voice as smooth as silk, Grant started into his standard crowd-pleaser: Sinatra’s ‘My Kind of Town.

In the half-century of his life, a tick on the Doomsday clock, he had borne witness to the most unbelievable technological advances. He had started off listening to an old Bush radio in the corner...

Crime isn’t pretty, only fashionably dressed.

She had been lying there, facedown in the water long before the tide had turned at 3.04 that morning. Her eyes were staring into the river, her blonde hair first fanning out, then drawing back...

It’s open,” he said loudly and stood up to receive his visitor. In walked a tall blonde, her high heels stabbing the scuffed- up hardwoods, her perfume battling the smell of coffee and dust permeating...