“Ms. McMartin had no close family. Her nearest relative was a distant cousin who had recently died in Shanghai, after a severe allergic reaction to a bowl of turtle and arsenic soup.”

“Family, like arsenic, works best in small doses...unless you prefer to die.”

“Light like thin grey soup seeped through the windows. The door opened and Mrs. Dark came in, followed by her sister, who had no head, only the white bone of her spine protruding from her raggedly severed neck.”

“For Silas, Lichport was only a name, like that of a distant cousin or a dead relative he’d never met. Familiar but abstract.”

“I have to do this, as long as it is at all possible; for if those who are obliged to look after commas had always made sure they were in the right place, then Shanghai would not be burning.”

“Lady Middleton piqued herself upon the elegance and extravagance of her table, and all her domestic arrangements; she loved to surprise English visitors with displays of hospitality native to her homeland, such as flavouring her soups with monkey urine and not telling anyone she had done so until the bowl had been drained.”