The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike, #1)

by Robert Galbraith

Bombarded with the story, you grew interested against your will, and before you knew it, you were so well informed, so opinionated about the facts of the case, you would have been unfit to sit on a jury.

‘A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous.’

She had flailed, trying to find handholds in the merciless empty air; and then, without time to make amends, to explain, to bequeath or to apologise, without any of the luxuries permitted those who are given notice of their impending demise, she had broken on the road.

The dead could only speak through the mouths of those left behind, and through the signs they left scattered behind them.

How easy it was to capitalise on a person’s own bent for self-destruction; how simple to nudge them into non-being, then to stand back and shrug and agree that it had been the inevitable result of a chaotic, catastrophic life.