Quotes about detective
Georgette Heyer - A Blunt Instrument
...I'll tell you something else too by the time we're through we shall have had all we can stand of this North woman. I wouldn't mind betting she thinks we have nothing better to do than run around in circles while she gets on with this three-act problem play of hers.
Martin Cruz Smith - Tatiana
He never had been good at arguing with women they tapped into pools of resentment over slights that had steeped for years.
Lawren Leo - Love's Shadow: Nine Crooked Paths
She looked at his face and saw a monk and a detective, both beautiful and bizarre.
Tom Cook - Vampire Chic (edition 3) Dagon Jamm P. I.
you were attacked by cement monkeys?
Steven David Levine - Eulogy in Blue
Hard work is great. It buys you more tickets to the luck lottery.
Keri Arthur - Who Needs Enemies
Well, strap my ass to a flagpole and hoist it skyward' an all to familiar voice declared.
Sara Sheridan - British Bulldog
She tried to focus on the element of riddle or at least puzzle contained in the letter and ignore the sense of doom that was sweeping through her like clouds rolling to the shore over open water.
Alan Bradley - Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd
I could tell he was becoming sulky, as boys and men do when they're caught bluffing. And I ignored him, as girls and women do when they catch them out.
Catherine Aird -
If there was one thing which Sloan had learned over the years it was that you should never underestimate the element of luck in detective work.
Alexei Maxim Russell - Trueman Bradley - Aspie Detective
Everything can be summed up into an equation.
Jonathan Latimer - Solomon's Vineyard
Blood always excites me.
Tana French - Broken Harbour
If you're good at this job, and I am, then every step in a murder case moves you in one direction: towards order. We get thrown shards of senseless wreckage, and we piece them together until we can lift the picture out of the darkness and hold it up to the white light of day, solid, complete, clear. Under all the paperwork and the politics, this is the job; this is its cool shining heart that I love with every fiber of mine. This case was different. It was running backwards, dragging us with it
Lara Adrian - Taken by Midnight
Persistence is often a detective's greatest ally.
Richard Castle -
I actually do have a motto,” said Heat. “It’s ‘Never forget who you work for.'" And as she voiced the words, Nikki felt a creeping unease. It wasn’t exactly shame, but it was close. For the first time it sounded hollow. Fake. Why? She examined herself, trying to see what was different. The stress, that was new. And when she looked at that, she recognized that the hardest part of her day lately was working to avoid confrontation with Captain Montrose. That’s when it came to her. In that moment, s
Alexei Maxim Russell - Trueman Bradley - The Next Great Detective
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 which may not hinder your life too much, under normal circumstances. But if you want to be a great detective, then such thinking will absolutely ruin your chances.
J.E. Mac - Damaged Good
A Dick and Jane story written in blood and battered bone.See Spot.See Spot run.See Spot run from a gaping chest wound.Run Spot run.See Detective smear Spot into a baggy for DNA testing.
Philip Kerr -
Being a Berlin cop in 1942 was a little like putting down mousetraps in a cage full of tigers.
Clare Havens - The Secret Formula
Ah ha!' the Doc screeched suddenly, wheeling around. ''The salicylic acid! Maybe it SHOULD have been heated first!
Rachel Renee - Detective Eliza Sheppard
We don't know how our choices can change the course of our lives until they do. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes tragedy for us to realize it.
Cornell Woolrich - The Ten Faces of Cornell Woolrich: An Inner Sanctum Collection of Novelettes and Short Stories
But there are three things in this world you can’t shrug off: death, taxes – and a girl who loves you.
Denison Hatch - Never Go Alone
This has been a covert preparation for an overt operation." - Rory in NEVER GO ALONE
Stevie O'Connor - Under The Stones
The dead man's face was pale and bloodless. The fierce white lights in the morgue showed up every detail mercilessly and every last pore and pock-mark was revealed, the history of a life, now reduced to a mere handful of scars. 'Always nice to see you Mark, but what brings you in so late on Friday afternoon?' Lambert said nothing, staring at Petrie's corpse, before turning to the coroner. John Humby was older and getting close to retirement and the two had been friends for a very long time. Humb
Elizabeth Heiter - Disarming Detective
The instant Isabella Cortez left the safety of the FBI building, goose bumps skittered across her skin and her senses went on high alert.
John Green - Paper Towns
He just waited until I stopped talking and said, 'Jesus, kid, you're almost a detective. All you need now is a gun, a gut, and three ex-wives. So what's your theory?
Rhys Ford - Dirty Kiss
I stole a bit of a chopped vegetable and was about to put it in my mouth when Jae’s long fingers closed over my wrist. “What? You can’t eat this raw?”“It’s bitter melon. You won’t like it.” He went into the fridge and came out with something that looked halfway familiar. “Here, leftover bao. There’s char siu inside.”“The red pork stuff? Yeah, I like that. I thought it was Chinese.” “It is. We also eat hamburgers and spaghetti.
NisiOisiN -
As the greatest of detectives makes the greatest of criminals, a specialist in investigation is also a specialist in murder.
Peter Ackroyd - Hawksmoor
It has often been said that the more unusual the murder the easier it is to solve, but this is a theory I don't believe. Nothing is easy, nothing is simple, and you should think of your investigations as a complicated experiment: look at what remains constant and look at what changes, ask the right questions and don't be afraid of wrong answers, and above all rely on observation and rely on experience.
Peter Ackroyd - Hawksmoor
Generally he knew by instinct the likely length of an investigation, but on this occasion he did not: as he fought to get his breath he suddenly saw himself as others must see him, and he was struck by the impossibility of his task. The event of the boy's death was not simple because it was not unique and if he traced it backwards, running the time slowly in the opposite direction (but did it have a direction?), it became no clearer. The chain of causality might extend as far back as the boy's b
Evan Hunter -
A detective sees death in all the various forms at least five times a week.
Beatrice Stark Girl Detective -
It's been a while since I've had sex. I figured it was just like riding a bike, the only difference is that after a while, the bike doesn't turn you over and ride you.
V.T. Davy - Black Art
You don’t rewrite it, censor it, or edit it, to suit some warped view you have of the past and your own present.
Jodi Linton - Cowboy: A Deputy Laney Briggs Novella
She had an ass that could make any man sin."~ Gunner Wilson
Jodi Linton - Pretty Shameless
I only swing for one girl. But if she's into a certain kind of kink, who am I to deny her such pleasantries?"~ Luke Wagner
Jodi Linton - Pretty Shameless
Have you checked your ass out lately? It’s pretty dang distracting, darling.” ~ Gunner Wilson
Jodi Linton - Pretty Shameless
I guess you’re going for the hard-ass Texas Ranger thing today” ~ Laney Briggs
Josephine Tey - The Singing Sands
It would do her good to have some demons to fight, to be swung out in space and held over some bottomless pit now and then.
M.L. Terese - Fear Not the Starry Sky: A Kathleen Lang Novel
A black telephonereceiver was stuffed in the small space between his ear and hisshoulder; he motioned for them to sit in the stiff wooden armchairs infront of his desk. Moments later he hung up the phone, the baseringing lightly from the impact.“So you’re still in a mess, aren’t you?” he said.
Sara Sheridan - British Bulldog
Covert operations relied on the unguarded slip, the unconscious choosing of one word over another.
Sara Sheridan - British Bulldog
The good thing about the aristocracy – German or English – was that they were easily traced, Mirabelle thought.
Agatha Christie -
Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition- and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, evEryThing is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scare here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking TO do- clear away the extraneous matter so that we
A.E.H. Veenman -
Ever since we’d found Wilson, his cousin’s calmness bothered me. I realized now I felt less unease with angry outbursts from grieving relatives, than I had with the slow, ticking time bomb of the quiet and collected.--Prepped for Kill, Marjorie Gardens Mystery Book 2
A.E.H. Veenman -
I didn't like the calm tone reminiscent of his composure at the library, nor was I comfortable with his blank expression. We had a crime scene without forensics, and a body without a medical examiner. If I didn't counter whatever fresh hell Edward was about to unleash, we’d also lose concrete evidence we had yet to procure.--Prepped for the Kill, Marjorie Gardens Mystery Book 2
A.E.H. Veenman -
This was the second murder with which I’d found myself associated. Unlike the death of my client in April, my estranged uncle and his gang had nothing to do with this. And as far as I was aware, Arthur Teague was not a thug with the Fernoza Family mafia.--Prepped for the Kill, Marjorie Gardens Mystery Book 2
Alan Bradley - Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd
How could I tell Clarence that finding another dead body was anything but dreadful? On the contrary: it was thrilling; it was exciting; it was exhilarating, it was invigorating; to say nothing of electrifying and above all, satisfying.How could I tell the dear man that murder made me feel so gloriously alive?
Anna Katharine Green - The Leavenworth Case
It is not for me to suspect but to detect.
Laurie R. King - The Beekeeper's Apprentice
XVXVI, or 10-5-10-5-1, yielded H-E-H-E-A, which, unless she wanted to show her derisive laughter, made no sense.
Anthony Horowitz - The House of Silk
It was quite elementary,' returned the detective with a languid gesture of one hand.
Anthony Horowitz - The House of Silk
You look at me as if I were a conjuror,' Holmes remarked, with a laugh.
Jon Michaelsen - Pretty Boy Dead
It takes a certain kind of man willing to work long, grueling hours in a career offering few rewards.
Clare Havens - Doc Gutson's Revenge
Simon's brain tried to comprehend the situation. 'Was an international supermodel really holding Doc Gutson, leader of the infamous Bloodworth Gang, captive?
Clare Havens - The Secret Formula
Ah ha!" the Doc screeched suddenly, wheeling around. "The salicylic acid! Maybe it SHOULD have been heated first!
Clare Havens - The Secret Formula
Just making the cement now, only takes five minutes.""I did it in four once," Pauly whispered boastfully to Johnny, "but if I'm honest, I was never completely happy that it set properly.""Who was it for?""Big Joe the Hammer.""Oh, yeah," Johnny nodded. "Didn't I hear he was spotted in Vegas a few weeks back?"Pauly nodded morosely."Yeah, like I said, I didn't think it had set properly.
Dianne Harman - Coyote in Provence
Don't wanna ever take your shoes off in coconut land. Never know when you're gonna have to run.
NisiOisiN - Zaregoto 1: Book 1: The Kubikiri Cycle
Every mystery novel I ever read, the great detective was such an arrogant fuck you could replace 70% of his dialogue with 'Are you stupid?' and the conversation would still make sense.
Gosho Aoyama -
Time is a terrible thing because it can erase both joys and pains.
Gwenn Wright - The BlueStocking Girl
A smile is hidden beneath the mustache, it crinkles the corners of his hooded eyes. “I didn’t. I have other business in town and I told my friend I would attend to the matter of his son, as he could not do so himself.” “Very kind of you.” “Yes. I have been looking forward to it for quite some time.” Daddy’s lemonade is almost gone, he sips it carefully, turning his eyes back to the water. “Looking forward to seeing the lad or to conducting your business?” Daddy is toying with him. “Both. You se
Jane Sunday - The Good Book Club
Norm was lean, his short, straight black hair parted on the side, his mustache trimmed like he’d never heard of Adolf Hitler.
Rex Stout - The Silent Speaker
Frankly, I wish I could make my heart quit doing an extra thump when Wolfe says satisfactory, Archie. It's childish.
Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of the Baskervilles
The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.
Agatha Christie - Death on the Nile
It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again.""Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant.
Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Bina, thank you. Bina, listen, this guy. His name wasn't Lasker. This guy-'She puts a hand to his mouth. She has not touched him in three years. It probably would be too much to say that he feels the darkness lift at the touch of her fingertips against his lips. But it shivers, and light bleeds in among the cracks.
Zechariah Barrett -
Jean smirked, and delicately swirled the mic in his hands, careful not to make a sound. “Oui. C’est normal. C'est pas spécial. I will give you something worthy of Holmes.” Jean set down the mic and proceeded toward the couple. As he approached them, he fiddled with his mustache for a moment, and then pulled it sharply. He winced at the sensation. “I have it,” he declared confidently. “You sir, are a thief.
Lily Gardner - A Bitch Called Hope
about Tommy, you went through your whole life craving these little pockets of time and missing them for more time than you had them.
Lily Gardner - A Bitch Called Hope
There were men in their fifties, men who take a stab at fitness, men who try. They may not look young, but they still look viable. Lammers wasn't one of those. Lammers was one of those crack-in-the-ass guys ten months pregnant with a beer baby.
Lily Gardner - A Bitch Called Hope
that was the thing about luck, its laws were those of scarcity.
Lily Gardner - A Bitch Called Hope
The Land of Civilian was a dry bitter place where you sat in your car staring at drawn curtains and closed doors for hours on end, and where everything was a big, freaking secret.
Barry N. Malzberg - The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich
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 it was to BLACK MASK and the other detective magazines with a curious and terrible fiction which had never been seen before in the genre markets; Hart Crane and certainly Hemingway were writing of people on the edge of their emotions and their possibility but the genre mystery markets were filled with charact
Rick Yancey -
In the nineteenth century, The Romantics viewed Nature as benign, a glowing reflection of God's grace. Now we know better. Nature is brutal and, if it is feminine, she's not the kind of woman you can trust. Human beings may be her finest achievement yet, but when you get right down to brass tacks, we're meat. AIDS and organisms like streptococcus don't give a crap that we subdued the earth or produced a Shakespeare...
R.J. Leahy - Fat Chance
Terrible accident; body parts was everywhere—-fingers, toes, wings, beaks. Ambulance people tried to scoop him all up, but apparently it ain’t so easy as you might think—telling a chicken from a Chinaman, I mean. Anyways, they got his weight off his driver’s license, picked up a hundred and thirty pounds of pieces and buried ‘em. Now his wife come every year 'bout this time to pay her respects. We don't serve chicken while she's here. Hope you ain't got a taste for it.
Anthony Horowitz - Magpie Murders
I had chosen to play the detective—and if there is one thing that unites all the detectives I've ever read about, it's their inherent loneliness. The suspects know each other. They may well be family or friends. But the detective is always the outsider. He asks the necessary questions but he doesn't actually form a relationship with anyone. He doesn't trust them, and they in turn are afraid of him. It's a relationship based entirely on deception and it's one that, ultimately, goes nowhere. Once
Deyth Banger -
Everyone deserv a chance maybe 2 or 3, but always this guy wants something and before he didn't made it don't mean that now again won't reach a conclusion.
Margery Allingham - Death of a Ghost
There are, fortunately, very few people who can say that they have actually attended a murder.
Rob Thomas - Mr. Kiss and Tell
Conan Doyle deluded a century of readers into thinking we're all deductive geniuses.
Agatha Christie -
If Hori were to die, I should not forget! Hori is a song in my heart for ever... That means-that there is no more death...
Rob Thomas - Mr. Kiss and Tell
Chatty, defensive, observant. My new favorite witness.
Ben Aaronovitch - Moon Over Soho
The general public have a warped view of the speed at which an investigation proceeds. They like to imagine tense conversations going on behind the venetian blinds and unshaven, but ruggedly handsome, detectives working themselves with single-minded devotion into the bottle and marital breakdown. The truth is that at the end of the day, unless you've generated some sort of lead, you go home and get on with the important things in life - like drinking and sleeping, and if you're lucky, a relation
M.R.C. Kasasian - The Mangle Street Murders
The criminal mind is perverted and convoluted but almost invariably unimaginative,'he said as Molly came out in a fluster
Dorothy L. Sayers - Whose Body?
But if you were investigating a crime,” said Lady Swaffham, “you’d have to begin by the usual things, I suppose — finding out what the person had been doing, and who’d been to call, and looking for a motive, wouldn’t you?”“Oh, yes,” said Lord Peter, “but most of us have such dozens of motives for murderin’ all sorts of inoffensive people. There’s lots of people I’d like to murder, wouldn’t you?”“Heaps,” said Lady Swaffham.
Peter Robinson - Strange Affair
But he couldn't feel self-pity in the face of the memorial. He hadn't lost nearly enough as these children, who'd lost their homeland and, in many cases,their whole families. Perhaps they had gained something, too, though. They had at least escaped the concentration camps, been taken in by good, caring families, and had grown up to live their lives in relative freedom.
Agatha Christie - The Moving Finger
The great thing in these cases is to keep an absolutely open mind. Most crimes, you see, are so absurdly simple.
G.K. Chesterton -
But if I want to murder somebody, will it really be the best plan to make sure I'm alone with him?'Lord Pooley's eyes recovered their frosty twinkle as he looked at the little clergyman. He only said: 'If you want to murder somebody, I should advise it.
Robert Galbraith -
He had called what he felt for Charlotte love and it remained the most profound feeling he had had for any woman. In the pain it had caused him and its lasting after-effects it had more resembled a virus that, even now, he was not He had called what he felt for Charlotte love and it remained the most profound feeling he had had for any woman. In the pain it had caused him and its lasting after-effects it had more resembled a virus that, even now, he was not.
Phillip Rock - Hickey & Boggs
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 to ask, no talk. Cops are worse, and less predictable. When you pull a gun, you've gotta be ready to kill somebody, and I'm telling you it's better to run.
V.T. Davy - Black Art
When a beautiful blonde asks, you don't say no.
Richard Castle -
It was always the same for her when she arrived to meet the body. After she unbuckled her seat belt, after she pulled a stick pen from the rubber band on the sun visor, after her long fingers brushed her hip to feel the comfort of her service piece, what she always did was pause. Not long. Just the length of a slow deep breath. That's all it took for her to remember the one thing she will never forget. Another body waited. She drew the breath. And when she could feel the raw edges of the hole th
J.R. Rain - Moon Bayou
I guess us folks in California are kind of straitlaced and old-fashioned."Hahaha, I thought on the way downstairs. I never thought I'd say those words with a straight face...
J.R. Rain - Moon Bayou
You'll be in good hands with the colonel, you'll see."The colonel? Okay, I was obviously stuck in a Gone With the Wind theme park. Or maybe a Kentucky Fried Chicken farm.Or I was simply hallucinating...
Sherry Thomas - A Study in Scarlet Women
That the loss of a man, even if he had been the love of her life, was not the end of a woman's existence.
Alexis Hall - Shadows & Dreams
He was wearing a gleaming cream-coloured linen suit, and a Panama hat. The weirdest thing about this was that he was not the most outlandish-looking person in the room by a long way. Not that Little Miss Dresses-Like-Bogart over here has a right to complain
Abramelin Keldor - The Goodwill Grimoire
Why did so many teenagers fall for Stanley Horowitz’s tricks?”“These were impressionable teenagers,” Nick explained. “Many of them were devoted fans of romantic Vampyre stories. They over-romanticized what it means to be a Vampyre, and that gave Stanley a way to manipulate th
Abramelin Keldor - The Goodwill Grimoire
Nick laughed and pet the Wangdoodle on the head. “Esperto, you silly boy,” he said to the Wangdoodle. “Usually, Esperto only transforms when I’m in danger,” Nick said to Elphaba. “But whenever he’s around Dymons, he loves to play along. Their transformations are to Esperto what a ball of yarn is to a kitten.” Esperto gave out a strange squeaking growl, which Elphaba figured was the Wangdoodle version of a
Abramelin Keldor - The Goodwill Grimoire
So, what if your entire body was, oh I don’t know, dropped into molten met
Abramelin Keldor - The Goodwill Grimoire
The two of them carefully stepped around the crime scene, picking up Nick’s arms, legs and organs, and brought them back to his head. They placed his extremities into position, and then pieced in the gorier bits, assembling a gruesome jigsaw puzzle. In a few moments, most of Nick’s body was in place.The healing process took about twenty minutes. Elphaba and John stood spellbound as they watched a bloody collection of body parts reintegrate into a human form. As Nick’s sinews, nerves, and muscle
Abramelin Keldor - The Goodwill Grimoire
Charlie slowly crumpled to the floor, Allison soon joining him. “Dinner is served!” Stanley trumpeted, as he reached into the steaming mass of offal and fished around for the teens’ livers. “Aha!” he crowed, as he lifted one liver in each hand over his
Abramelin Keldor - The Goodwill Grimoire
Immortal.” Melanie paused and stared into space for a moment, her mouth moving with nothing coming out. “That is way cool,” she said finally. “That probably means you’re old. How old are you?”“Hmm, let’s see. I never remember the answer to that question.” Nick calculated for a moment. “819 years o
Abramelin Keldor - The Goodwill Grimoire
Elphaba gave him a sidelong glance. “I think you enjoy going to school, Nick. Are you sure canoodling with teenage girls isn’t your ulterior motive?”“Perish the thought, Elphaba, perish the thought. I’m too old for that.” Nick winked. “By about eight hundred years.
Abramelin Keldor - The Goodwill Grimoire
Good, evil, these are human concepts, ways people have for understanding what it means to be alive,” Nick said. “Before people came along, this planet was teeming with life, fighting to survive, to live long enough to reproduce, completing the circle of li
Abramelin Keldor - The Goodwill Grimoire
Elphaba’s face darkened again. Then she asked, hesitantly, as if afraid of the answer, “So, how do you get the evil life force?”“From innocent people, Elphaba,” Nick spoke so quietly he almost whispered. “I must draw the life force from innocent people. The more innocent they are, the more evil the murder
Abramelin Keldor - The Goodwill Grimoire
The only way Magick ever has power is when its secrets are truly secret. Once too many people know how it works, then it doesn’t work anymore.