“If you want the extra-ordinary, you've got to be willing to forsake the ordinary' - Annie Grimes in Mr Alhourani's Dead Man's Spots”

“A day without someone to hold you or a day without someone to share, is a day easily forgotten.’ - Vera Richardson in Mr Alhourani's Dead Man's Spots”

“There’s a black boy dead for no reason, and the man responsible for it’s dead. Let the dead bury the dead this time, Mr. Finch. Let the dead bury the dead.”

“Ironically, I am reliably informed that Michael McIntyre doesn't actually have a "man drawer", and invented the concept in order to ridicule ordinary people, for whom he has nothing but haughty contempt.”

“Despite the gloom she could make out enough of his finely chiseled features to fleetingly rethink the CPR issue. The man was a knock out, with cheek bones sharp enough to cut cheese on, an arrow straight nose, a strong jaw, and a well cut mouth that subjected both cruelty and sensuality. He stirred groaning softly, hands flailing as if he was searching for something. Mary moved out the way as he rolled towards her coming to rest on his back. As she lent over him to get another look dark eyelashes flickered, opened. His eyes were pale and striking, something flashing in them like lightning cutting through turbulent storm clouds. A pair of fey owlish brows slanted down in to a perplexed frown as he stared up at her. Mary let out a startled yelp when she was grabbed, and then rolled beneath a larger body, his heavy weight, her arms pinioned above her in just one of his large hands. Her hat yanked off and her features quickly scanned. Outrage quickly turned in to fear. The glacial scrutiny made her tremble as if an arctic wind had caressed her body, not that the shear brute strength the stranger wielded alone was not frightening enough. “I’m just trying to help you.” Mary breathed, fighting down the rising panic as his gaze bored in to her. “You must have fallen of your bike.” She had worked Crown defense long enough to have encountered more then a few clients who were nothing more then malicious, ill tempered, brutal thugs. This man Mary knew on an intuitive level was far more dangerous, because he was a killer, because he was devoid of all those things. There was a detachment to his inspection of her, considering if she was pray or a pet. Not human. Something deeply buried stirred. An ancestral memory whispered through her mind like the scent of wood smoke on the night air, instinctive as the fear of the falling, and things that lurked in the dark.”

“You know you've got a problem when baristas greet you by name. You know you've got another problem when it's the warmest social interaction of your day.”

“My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.”