Ordinary Monsters (The Talents Trilogy #1)

by J.M. Miro

If her soul belonged to Jesus in the next world, in this one her flesh belonged to any who would feed it, clothe it, shelter it.

“There’s but the one Book of Christ,” he said softly. He raised a bleary bloodshot stare. “But there’s as many kinds of Christian as there is folk who did ever walk this earth.”

Justice is just a bucket with a hole in the bottom, as my father used to say.

But when Pinkerton’s sons rose to power she was let go, all because she was a woman, and therefore delicate, and therefore not right for detective work. She put her fist through the wall of William Pinkerton’s office when he fired her. “Your fucking wall is delicate,” she said to him.

Here courtesy is more important than truth. More important than being right.”

White folk, it wasn’t just that they were rich, or talked however they wanted, or went wherever they wished to go. It wasn’t just their geldings and coaches and liveried servants. It was more than that. They walked through the world as if it was a place that didn’t have to be the way it was, as if it could change, the way a person could change. That was the difference, he’d always thought.

Scared is just your head telling your heart to be careful. It’s not a bad thing. It’s what you do with it that matters.”

“Hey, what’d the skeleton say to his sick neighbor? Stop your bloody coffin.”