Maybe at the very bottom of it… I really don’t like God. You know, it’s silly to say I don’t like God because I don’t believe in God, but in the same sense that I...

And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?

Some ride the bullet to vent, while some shoot the bullet to revenge.

She had known it was bad, call it a mother’s instinct, but she’d known this was the knock that was going to scoop her insides out and leave her barely able to stand; merely a...

Now, this was a combination that she wouldn’t dare to dream of, even in her worst nightmare.

It’s funny, but certain faces seem to go in and out of style. You look at old photographs and everybody has a certain look to them, almost as if they’re related. Look at pictures from...

Too much sensibility creates unhappiness and too much insensibility creates crime.

Edward Snowden isn’t a traitor. He reported the crime of conspiracy to deny citizens of their constitutional rights.

All is extremely genteel; and there is almost as much repose as in the golden saloons of the contiguous palaces. At any rate, if there be as much vice, there is as little crime.

[Stieg] was describing Sweden the way it was and the way he saw the country: the scandals, the oppression of women, the friends he cherished and wished to honor.

This may not be art as art commonly goes; the lack of discipline, of control, would seem to rule it out of that category. And yet Woolrich’s lack of control over emotions is a crucial...

I am told that the proximity of punishment arouses real repentance in the criminal and sometimes awakens a feeling of genuine remorse in the most hardened heart; I am told this is due to fear.

Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable […]. Does our education prepare us...

Emotional speculation is to deductive reasoning what weeds are to a garden – at first sight they appear to belong, but eventually they obscure that which one hopes will come into bud.

In my life long study of human beings, I have found that no matter how hard they try, they have found no way yet to prevent the arrival of Monday morning. And they do try,...

Ever since the ’70s, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo were the godfathers of Scandinavian crime. They broke the crime novel in Scandinavia from the kiosks and into the serious bookstores.

The darkest and most complex novel in (the Murdoch) series.

I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.

Who was the moron on the phone?””Carl Avery,” Kate said. “A long-standing client and potential felon.

I’m relaxed, Belk. I call it Zen and the art of not giving a shit.

It is acknowledged that father-daughter incest occurs on a large scale in the United States. Sexual abuse has now been included in child abuse legislation. A conservative estimate is that more than 1 million women...

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.

This doll-guy situation is an extreme of what I deal with in everyday life, where men believe that what they want I want, and they project that on to me and then blame me, curse...

I’m intrigued by how ordinary behavior exists so close beside its opposite.

Be informed, also, that this good and savoury Parish is the home of Hectors, Trapanners, Biters who all go under the general appelation of Rooks. Here are all the Jilts, Cracks, Prostitutes, Night-walkers, Whores, Linnen-lifters,...

In crime books it’s possible to chart forensic technology by how well it has to be explained to a reader. In mid-Victorian crime novels fingerprinting has to be explained because it’s new. Nowadays it’s part...

What better weapon than the human brain? The human brain was Mrs Twartski’s and Wiezenslowski’s domain. The children who were used were the castaways of the United States government, like dogs abandoned and a vet’s...

But as soon as a man, through lack of character, takes refuge in doctrine, as soon as crime reasons about itself, it multiplies like reason itself and assumes all the aspects of the syllogism. Once...

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.

a serious contender for my book of year. I can’t believe I only discovered Chris Carter a year ago and I now consider him to be one of my favourite crime authors of all time....

When my son speaks of playing sports, I’ve always told him: playing on the team is great, but aspire to be the guy who owns the team. I’ve always told my son: most of the...

At the small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction – it fascinated rather than repelled.

Statistics show that the nature of English crime is reverting to its oldest habits. In a country where so many desire status and wealth, petty annoyances can spark disproportionately violent behaviour. We become frustrated because...

We run to place and power over the dead bodies of those who fail and fall; ay, we win the food we eat from out the mouths of starving babes.

I don’t have a command for ‘stop wagging your tail’.

Insider trading is a serious crime. Do you know what the penalty for doing it is? Nothing, if you’re a member of Congress.

I saw her sign the register, but her name isn’t on it any more. The bellboy says he never saw her. Now they’ve got me so I’m scared and shaky, like a little kid is...

The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.

And there above all of these shops hung a blood soaked sign: a red hand, the hand of a child that was neither male nor female and yet roused feelings of the most dejected and...

Change the world so that nothing else is changed.

There are, fortunately, very few people who can say that they have actually attended a murder.

No lo entiendes: ella había nacido para morir. Yo nací para matar. Simplemente, era cuestión de que nos encontráramos el uno al otro.

It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The...

It is the bungled crime that brings remorse.

Crude. You’re crude, roomie.

A selection of quotes from The Night of Harrison Monk’s Death (Jane Hetherington’s Adventures in Detection: 1)”Is this one of the more unusual cases of safe-breaking you’ve been asked to investigate, Mrs Hetherington?””Remember your private...

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

The reader is the final arbiter.

That God is in truth the sort of bloodthirsty paranoid Who would rend to bits forty-two children for the crime of sassing one of his priests. Don’t ask me about the Front Office’s policies; I...

The Element of Surprise is their in every day,It’s when you wake up.