G is for Gumshoe (Kinsey Millhone, #7)

by Sue Grafton

I’m a born liar, but I don’t do as well disguising what I feel.

I said, still trying to take it in. When you’re presented with bad news, there’s always this lag time, the brain simply unable to assimilate the facts.

Maybe life is just a straight shot from the horrors of grade school to the horrors of the nursing home.

They seemed as motionless as plants, resigned to infrequent watering.

her rheumy-eyed attention still focused on me.

What is it about aging that takes us right back to birth?

but I got the job done and the physical labor improved my mood. It felt good to smash things.

It felt good to sweat. It felt good to be in control of one small corner of the universe.

A threat on your life is a curious thing. It seems, at the same time, both abstract and absurd.

I knew in my head the danger was out there, but it didn’t feel dangerous

her arthritic knuckles as protuberant as redwood burls.

“Don’t make me go,” she whispered.

I felt the hair stiffen along my scalp.

“Time wounds all heels, you know.”

The reality of the death threat had finally filtered down into my psyche, where it was beginning to accumulate an energy of its own.