Reconstruction Quotes

“he was Civil Service; they could take his life, but they’d never take his annual leave—”
― Mick Herron, Reconstruction

“Blessed are the unforgiving, for they shall come out even. That was the lost frigging beatitude as far as Bad Sam Chapman was concerned. As for the meek: we’ll make them give it back.”
― Mick Herron, Reconstruction

“Once upon a time, City banks were large, solid constructions; their entrances supported by unmissable pillars; their plate glass windows reminiscent of churches. The scrollwork over their doors assumed a working knowledge of Latin, their floors were tiled, and their partners’ names were gilt-etched on to large wooden boards in the lobby, possibly facing a Landseer, or something equally permanent. Ceilings were high, voices low. Tickertape chattered behind cashiers’ desks. The necessary vulgarity of the telephone was mitigated by the instrument’s being fashioned of black Bakelite, with a cup you held to one ear while rattling the handset for the switchboard’s attention. All of which Louise knew to be true, because she had a weakness for old movies. These were the banks where characters from Brief Encounter cashed a cheque when the butcher’s bill arrived. And everything about them was intended to reassure; their very presence a valet’s murmur confirming the rightness of your choices. They were the repository of their clients’ futures, and did not take this trust lightly. Which was long before Louise came in, because sometime in the nineties, an architectural shift had matched the social revolution of the eighties, and the dominant style was now the big fuck-off. Huge glass and chrome buildings vied to dominate the skyline, and when they weren’t telling each other to fuck off, they were reminding passers-by that they could fuck off too. Because these banks weren’t safeguarding petty cash, they were bankrolling governments, multinationals, insurance companies, arms firms, big pharma, record companies, fast-food franchises, media conglomerates, supermarket chains, and every other organization whose fundamental if usually secret purpose was to remind the little folk that they were powerless and, if they didn’t like it, could fuck off. She stood on the pavement opposite, looking at fourteen storeys from a previous life.”
― Mick Herron, Reconstruction

“Which was long before Louise came in, because sometime in the nineties, an architectural shift had matched the social revolution of the eighties, and the dominant style was now the big fuck-off.”
― Mick Herron, Reconstruction

“sooner than now.”
― Mick Herron, Reconstruction

“Sad little numbers man, I’d call him squeaky clean except there’s something rather grubby about the type, don’t you think? Staring at screens all day, then shuffling home to an evening’s porn. I’m surprised he had the imagination for a coup like this.”
― Mick Herron, Reconstruction

“This was a compromise, it was true—and compromises laid end to end were indistinguishable from surrender—but such things happened in enemy territory; you took time to check out the terrain, then drew a line in the sand you could defend.”
― Mick Herron, Reconstruction

“Even as he was speaking, he was having a vision of what Miro’s life must have been like: paranoia raised to an art form. He must have logged every item Jaime ever brought into his flat, and logged each one out again after he’d left. Burned the bedlinen, replaced the crockery; vacuumed the ceilings in Jaime’s wake, so there’d be nothing to remind him he’d ever been there. Which was a kind of self-protection; one that erased happiness as soon as it departed, so its souvenirs didn’t lacerate the present.”
― Mick Herron, Reconstruction

“The waiting policemen were combat-geared just this side of fetishism, and didn’t look like they’d brook disdain, much less resistance.”
― Mick Herron, Reconstruction

“Like speed cameras, we take one picture, then another; and allow the data gathered by experience to fill the gaps between.”
― Mick Herron, Reconstruction