Sometimes when I'm reading right along, a phrase or description will strike me in a way that makes an indelible print on my mind. Some times it's something emotionally touching, sometimes it's a vivid description of a scene or place in the author's mind. Most of the time it's something I find humorous, however. These are some of my favorite passages from mystery book writers. The names in bold are the characters who spoke them.
Stephanie Plum
"I checked myself out in the hall mirror. My hair was still squashed under the knit cap. Not real sexy, but that had never slowed Morelli down before. I pulled the cap off and my hair sprang out. Eek. Good thing I'd left the cap on.
Hitchcock Sewell
"The little town -or village...was a picturesque place on the coast, called Heayhauge. I've no idea how to pronounce it either. A few of the locals pronounced it for me while I was there, but to be honest I'd have had a rough time understanding their pronunciation of the name "Bob". The closest translation I can come up with is "Hee Haw". That's it " Hee Haw, Maine."
Patrick Kenzie
"I met his eyes, confused. Eric Gault and a gun went together like cavier and hot dogs."
Libby Kincaid
"I ate alone at the Mr. Bronco steak house, which looked like a cross between a high school cafeteria and Porter Wagoner's rec room. The hostess glumly directed me to the counter service area. I'd be glum, too, if somebody made me wear a gingham square-dancing dress to work. I bought a "Miss Kitty's Delite" , which, to my sorrow, turned out to be a diet plate--a sirloin steak that looked like a charcoal briquette and a baked potato so small you could have used it for an earplug. I compensated by ordering a Hoss Cartwright-sized mug of beer."
Owen Keane
"Your hair's getting gray, Owen." After a pause she added, "It's distinguished." "Yes," I said. "It distinguishes me from younger people."
"I played with the irreverent idea tha Conti had shot himself because bell-bottoms had gone out of style. That led me to wonder if I had any old photographs lying in wait to ambush me with proof that I had once backed the wrong fashion horse. I decided that, ironically, my congenital lack of style had spared me that cruel fate."
Casey Jones
"Lydia'a maid Mariela may have been able to work miracles with a needle and thread, but sublety was not her strong suit.
'Big butt! Big butt!' she exclaimed over and over in a thick Mexican accent as she shook her head and measured me for a dress. "No can we use Miss Lydia's dresses. No way. Big butt. Big butt. Flat like floor but wide like chair. Big butt.'
'Okay,' I told her. 'We get the message.' I jumped down off the love seat. No sense being on display, what with my big butt and all."
Faith Fairchild
Regarding funerals: "Was this what Margaret would have liked? It was going to be pretty sedate, although not without tears. What would Faith herself want? Faith pictured her own funeral and wished for some serious wailing and gnashing of teeth. Tom (her husband) had promised to go at the same time, so presumably the kids, elderly people themselves by then, would be pretty broken up. Faith wanted a funeral where people would feel free to throw themselves on the thin red carpet that went up the center aisle of the church. Maybe roll around a little. She wanted hymns that could be belted out. She wanted 'Amazing Grace' the way it ought to be sung."
Judy Carrier
The metal scrapyard lay alongside the highway in an industrial section of South Philly, and it was immense, taking up at least three city blocks. Mountains of rusty oil barrels, fenders, bumpers, aluminum duct work, brake drums, and railroad wheels reached like houses to the sky, and between each was a dirt road. It looked like a veritable City of Scrap, and if it was, its city hall sat at its center: a huge metal tower of dark corrugated tin, with a series of conveyor belts reaching to it in a zigazg pattern, like a crazy walkway. Judy had never seen anything like this, except in the cartoon 'The Brave Little Toaster', but she didn't say so. It didn't seem like the sort of thing you'd want your lawyer knowing, much less saying."
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