In the meantime, without realising it, I had learned a valuable lesson - in the need for an author to have a total belief in their characters if they are to come alive!

Life's too short for cheap beer--or cheap men.

Some day I would like to write a textbook on how to be a female detective in a man's world. Rule Number One: try not to let your animosity show. Your career as an investigator will be short lived if you cannot hide your feelings when you dislike, distrust, or despise your interviewee.

Something was wrong; Raymond McGregor could sense it. He blew his breath into the palm of his hands and rubbed them together. Even his sage green hunting jacket and insulated long-sleeved shirt could not deter the dampness from seeping through to his very bones as the sun began to settle on Cape Peril off the coast of Maine.

Culture is the best society has to offer...How can we pass on civilization to those who do not value civilization. (Terrence Rattigan)

Both men were pictures of the kind of grief that cauterizes open wounds in memory and turns them into black scars.

The smell of beer surrounded him in a cloud as if he’d been doused in Eau de Frat Boy cologne.

He was one of the few men who didn’t aspire to be alpha as long as he was in on the hunt.

The M.E. dissected pieces of a corpse to tell a story, while Drayco tried to bring them back from the dead, jagged piece by jagged piece.

The sliver of sun turned water crystals among the coal-colored clouds into the halo of a sundog.