We would never call inexplicable little insights ‘hunches,’ for fear of drawing the universe’s attention. But they happened, and you knew you had been in the proximity of one that had come through if you...

No, this was Philly. Drunks here boo Santa and get in more trouble than a dog with an Easter basket, and like the dog, they usually end up either sick or dead. Ah yes, another...

There are no crimes and no criminals in these days. What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No...

The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.

Muerte sin resurrección

I do not know whether it came from his own innate depravity or from the promptings of his master, but he was rude enough to set a dog at me. Neither dog nor man liked...

We women have intuition,” Barby said loftily. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. I can’t imagine why there aren’t more women detectives.

Her hair was pulled back so severely, it would have won approval from the Spanish Inquisition as a method of torture.

All my instincts are one way, and all the facts are the other, and I much fear that British juries have not yet attained that pitch of intelligence when they will give the preference to...

No matter which way you dice it, self-preservation is selfish.

Yeah. Floyd is his batman.”His what?”Batman, like in the British army, each officer had a batman, a personal servant.”You spend too much time reading, Spenser. You know more stuff that don’t make you money than...

Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable...

Maybe this is what it feels like for civilians when they see cops doing some of the dirty work. A lot of times they don’t understand what’s happening. They see something they don’t like and...

…You have any suggestions, make them. I’m in charge but humble. No need to salute when you see me.” Fraser said, “Mind if we snicker every once in a while behind your back?” “Hell, no,”...

I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all in connection with this case, as I choose to be only associated with those crimes which present some difficulty in their solution.

Danger is the snack food of a true sleuth.

After a while I got hungry and went to the kitchen. There was nothing to eat. I drank another beer and looked again, and found half a loaf of whole wheat bread behind the beer...

I love introverts. They don’t waste words. Excessive extroverts can be very wasteful. I don’t trust them in any kind of intricate or delicate matter.

The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution, if you only know how to use it.

Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional — to transform sensation, horror and grief into a puzzle, and then to solve the puzzle, to make it go away. ‘The detective story,’...

I took my .38 out and looked to see that there were bullets in all the proper places. I knew there would be, but it did no harm to be careful. And I’d seen Clint...

All people, whether Aspie or neuro-typical are predisposed by their society to make guesses, jump to conclusions and then seek to defend those conclusions, regardless of logic or changing circumstance. This is sloppy, illogical thinking...

Very strange things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be phenomenons, quite … Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great families …...

Jensen looked concerned.”I’m reluctant to delay, but would a later appointment be better?” He glanced over at Vanelli and got an answering ‘I told you so’ look that I personally wanted to scrape off Vanelli’s...

What is needed is the imagination of the poet and the reasoning power of the mathematician. The thief of “The Purloined Letter” successfully hides the letter from the police because he is both a poet...

Dr. Watson’s summary list of Sherlock Holmes’s strengths and weaknesses:”1. Knowledge of Literature: Nil.2. Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil.3. Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil.4. Knowledge of Politics: Feeble.5. Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium,...

Thus, by science I mean, first of all, a worldview giving primacy to reason and observation and a methodology aimed at acquiring accurate knowledge of the natural and social world. This methodology is characterized, above...

[The thief-taker] was conspicuous by his age, I should estimate he is in his middle fifties, and by a bearing, I am tempted to call it dignity, wanting in the others. He has a good...

Detective Inspector Eccles sighed. He may ordinarily have met his sigh with the question of why the newly appointed Superintendent Dickinson was turning up to this late hour crime scene, he may also ordinarily question...

Because it is my desire. Is that not enough? [Sherlock Holmes on his raison d’être.]

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...

You seem to have quite a taste for discussing these horrible subjects,” she said, rather scornfully; “you ought to have been a detective police officer.””I sometimes think I should have been a good one.””Why?””Because I...

right” because I can predict crazy because I have been trained in the unpredictable nature of consistent craziness because I am crazy.

I fear that if the matter is beyond humanity, it is certainly beyond me.

The Special Operations Network was instigated to handle policing duties considered either too unusual or too specialized to be tackled by the regular force. There were thirty departments in all, starting at the more mundane...

I couldn’t have made a better shot, if I had been one of those detectives who see a chap walking along the street and deduce that he is a retired manufacturer of poppet valves named...

It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.