“I called up my grandparents who I hadn't spoken to for over three years. I called my mother, who I had recently told to stop calling lest I contact the police. I sat with them all and it was normal and fun and good. I'm even ready - maybe - to speak to my father. Superman doesn't get upset at the people who shoot bullets at him. I get why, now.”

“My grandma is very old, and she doesn't remember things a lot, but she bakes the most delicious cookies. When I was very little, we had my mom's mom, who always had candy, and my dad's mom,who always had cookies. My mom told me that when I was little, I called them "Candy Grandma" and "Cookies Grandma." I also called pizza crust "pizza bones." I don't know why I'm telling you this.”

“I miss someone who gets me. I called a woman on my research team a bitch – you know in a friendly way – and she told me to go to hell. And I think she really meant it.”“Rhian, we’ve talked about this. Normal people don’t like to be called names. For some reason, they tend to take is personally. And you are a tad bitchy, by the way.“Normal people are so sensitive.”

“I recently spoke at a university where a student told me it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had recently read a novel called American Psycho,and that it was a shame that young Americans were serial murderers.”

“I could have just said I'm good at my job, but I didn't. Didn't want the police thinking I was holding out information when I wasn't. "I've got one advantage over a normal homicide detective, I expect it to be a monster. No one ever calls me in if it's just a stabbing, or a hit-and-run. I don't spend a lot of time trying to come up with nice, normal explanations. It means I get to ignore a lot of theories.”

“The train, I was later told by my mother, only had about ten carriages to it, and there were hundreds of people fighting to get on. I don’t think anybody knew where the train was going, only that it was leaving Strausberg and would take us away from the Russians, who were now arriving on the far end of the platform. Some German SS soldiers and Police were shooting at the Russian troops, and many people – men, women and children – were hit by the flying bullets.”