Hammers on Bone (Persons Non Grata, #1)

by Cassandra Khaw

It’s clear that under that ugly mug, there’s a thumbtack brain—sharp, small, and specialized—and it recognizes a man who means business.

I’m too old to be intimidated, but not old enough to be inoculated against a sense of righteous offense.

The noise becomes a whisper, a hiss, a celebration, a roar, a black surf breaking on the glaciers of an old, decaying world. It sutures itself into syllables, strings of sounds that could almost be called words if you’re feeling generous.

You don’t take what you’re not given.

One of the most effective tricks in a gumshoe’s playbook is the act of silence. Wait. Let the other guy pull the trigger first. It costs you nothing, and it gets you everything.

Night comes. Real night. Not just the chronological byproduct of Earth pirouetting around the sun, but a blackness that shoves the lizard brain nose first into the dirt and hisses for caution.

Not all of us wear our demons on our sleeves.

As for me, I took the scenic route home. Partly because there’s nothing like a slow drive after a hard case, with pit stops for a bottle of Jack and a bellyful of jerk. Partly because a stolen car’s something to be relished.