Death at the Sign of the Rook (Jackson Brodie #6)

by Kate Atkinson

“The guilty always masquerade as the innocent but it is rarely the other way round.”

He supposed that anarchy, like sex, was best left to the young, as they were blissfully blind to the consequences of both.

although it was easier to believe in the devil than it was in God. The devil was everywhere, whereas God was, clearly, nowhere to be found.

Simon’s lived faith was the imminence of the Apocalypse, a secular rather than a biblical one. He worried for the animals.

The deer were a “managed” herd, which meant they were culled regularly, something that felt decidedly unholy.

He had been a vegetarian for many years now, but had begun to view this as a rather pathetic halfway house. If he really cared for animals, surely he would be a vegan? It had struck home for him last summer when he had blessed Fran Jennings’ beehives. All that industry in the slavish service of humans! Bees were so smart you would think they would have rebelled by now.

some bits of the past you carried with you for ever, other bits you jettisoned as quickly as possible.