Two Envelopes And A Phone

“A startling chain of events had caused this forced emergence of Marston-le-Willows from its pastoral seclusion, its almost mediaeval English passivity and quietude into the hustle and noise of twentieth-century publicity. That chain of events had culminated in a mysterious murder and apparently there are few people who are not immediately interested in a mysterious murder. It is said that even such exalted personages as prime ministers, chancellors of the exchequer, law lords, headmasters of famous schools and secretly a bishop or two are addicted to the reading of fictional murders as an invigorating relaxation from the terrible strain of their stupendous mental activities.”
― Robin Forsythe, The Ginger Cat Mystery

“Across the Bay, lightning walked on awkward stilts”
― Graham Masterton, Charnel House

“They're trying to make us believe we live in the age of "the community," when the individual must perish so that society may live, and we don't want to see that it is society that is dying so the tyrants can live.”
― Irène Némirovsky, Suite Française

“God knows!” replied Driver. “It sounds as if someone has been trying to attack Miss Fuller, but you know how mysterious people are when telephoning to the police: they seem to think that the criminal must be lying in a ditch outside the house tapping the wires. It’s all the fault of these crime-books you see on every library shelf. Now that every Tom, Dick, and Harriet has turned to writing about murder...”
― Harriet Rutland, Blue Murder