“He glanced first at me, and then at his devastated flowerbed; all plowed up and butchered, like a Ripper victim- like Pearly Poll, lying gutted in Hanway Street, Spitalfields.”

“The chaplain glanced at the bridge table that served as his desk and saw only the abominable orange-red, pear-shaped, plum tomato he had obtained that same morning from Colonel Cathcart, still lying on its side where he had forgotten it like an indestructible and incarnadine symbol of his own ineptitude.”

“Then what are you like, Annabel?" he shot back. "A liar, like you told me that first day? Come on. That was the biggest lie of all.”

“Like a long wave, like a roll of heavy waters, he went over me, his devastating presence—dragging me open, laying bare the pebbles on the shore of my soul.”

“My book is extremely graphic. I make no apologies for it. But it is graphic only because I told the truth about what the Ripper did to his victims.”

“She couldn’t make him look just like any other man to her. He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom – a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung above him. He was a glance from God.”