“I was still a novice at the caped crusader super-sleuth thing, but it didn’t take a degree from the Sherlock Holmes Detective School to see exactly what had happened here. Alison had come home, put her lunch in the zapper, poured herself a beverage, turned on her computer and . . .vanished off the face of the earth.”

“[They] believed that the worst way to die, was far from home. That one’s soul traveled the earth, lost forever. But this place was as much her home as [California]. She had lived out some of the most important parts of her life here – and if that didn’t qualify a place as home, what did?”

“And then I thought that I had to be like Sherlock Holmes and I had to detach my mind at will to a remarkable degree so that I did not notice how much it was hurting inside my head.”

“Lady #1, Maki, had never once given any thought to what was really right for her in her life, simply believing that if she surrounded herself with super-exclusive things, she'd become a super-exclusive person.”

“Before, there had been this small, shiny thing inside her that kept her immune from what was happening, and now she knew it had only been her ignorance, and she felt herself falling into a deep, dark place.”

“Lord Peter was hampered in his career as a private detective by a public school education. Despite Parker's admonitions, he was not always able to discount it. His mind had been warped in its young growth by "Raffles" and "Sherlock Holmes," or the sentiments for which they stand. He belonged to a family which had never shot a fox. 'I am an amateur,' said Lord Peter”