Edinburgh Twilight (Ian Hamilton Mysteries #1)

by Carole Lawrence

He believed writers and policemen shared the knack of seeing the darker side of their fellow man. It was not always a gift, he knew—and once you had it, you could not turn your back on it.

“Must you stand there gaping like an idiot, Hamilton, when you can see I’m busy?” “I’m afraid my face looks naturally

idiotic in repose, sir.” “Very amusing,” Crawford grunted. “Aren’t you just the closet wit?” “‘Better a witty fool than a foolish wit,’ sir.”

Suspicion is a heavy armor—’” “‘And with its weight it impedes more than it protects.’ I don’t believe Robert Burns was talking about police work when he wrote those lines, sir.”

She remembered being that age, thinking the grace and ease of youth would last forever—getting old was something that happened to other people.

“‘A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.’”