Garden of Lamentations Quotes

“Finding she trusted Jean Armitage’s account considerably more than Pamela Peacock’s, Gemma translated this as, Everyone was smashed on punch and limoncello. Roland was flirting outrageously with Reagan Keating, who didn’t slap him, and Jean Armitage is a meddlesome bitch.”
― Deborah Crombie, Garden of Lamentations

“As for Mrs. Armitage herself, she was not at all what Gemma had expected. She might be either side of seventy, Gemma thought, but well-preserved in a way that had nothing to do with makeup or cosmetic surgery. Her graying hair was thick and simply cut. She wore tan twill trousers, belted at a neat waist, and a lightweight white cotton blouse. Her skin was only faintly lined and her eyes were a bright, sharp blue. All in all, an attractive woman, Mrs. Armitage, and Gemma had a better idea of why Clive Glenn, the gardener, had spoken of her with both respect and admiration.”
― Deborah Crombie, Garden of Lamentations

“You knew,” Kincaid said, thinking of Childs’s increasingly sallow skin over the past few years. Of course. He’d been jaundiced. And he had been losing weight for at least a year before his sudden leave. “The slimming. I thought it was for your health.” “It was for my health,” Childs agreed, “although perhaps not in the usual sense. Excess weight complicates any surgery and recovery.”
― Deborah Crombie, Garden of Lamentations

“Denis Childs hunched his shoulders as he walked into the unpleasant east wind. It was late in the year for an east wind—what was the old saying? An east wind blows no good? That would certainly be true tonight, he thought, tugging the lapels of his jacket together with a fist against his chest. The jacket’s tails flapped behind him like crow’s wings. He hadn’t had the time or the inclination to have many things altered, and his clothes hung loose as a scarecrow’s.”
― Deborah Crombie, Garden of Lamentations

“Childs sat back and finished the dregs of his tonic. Then he slid out of the booth with surprising grace for a big man. He stood for a moment, as if hesitating, then, with a last nod at Kincaid, made his way out of the bar.”
― Deborah Crombie, Garden of Lamentations

“And she was a little surprised at how much she’d hated seeing MacKenzie so shocked and upset.”
― Deborah Crombie, Garden of Lamentations

“straight”
― Deborah Crombie, Garden of Lamentations