John Franklin Bardin

“There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book takes the reader into a new world of experience; it is an experiment. A bad book, unless the writing is inept, reinforces the intransigent attitude of the reader not to experiment with a new world. Since there are criminals and psychopaths and sociopaths in all my novels they are in a way psychological thrillers.”
― John Franklin Bardin

“Not today! No, never again would she sit by the window, her back turned so she would not see him walk down the flagstone path with Dr Danzer, the limp volume of her favourite Bach spread open to the first page of the text, the black notes swarming before her eyes, her fingers arching in elaborate dumb-show as they practised the first trill, her mind on the beats, the leaning upon the upper note, the precise apperception of the stopping point - not a moment to soon, not a moment too late - and in her ears once more the sound, the slow dignity, of Anna Magdalena's sarabande, a delicate ornament for her melancholy.”
― John Franklin Bardin, Devil Take the Blue-tail Fly