Robert Crais Quotes

Moths swarmed around the parking lot lamps, banging into the glass with a steady tap-tap-tap, and I wondered if they welcomed the dawn. At dawn, they could stop slamming their heads into the thing tha...

Nothing smelled worse than the death of another human being. Not horses or cattle or rotten whales washed onto a beach. Human death was the smell of what hid in the future, waiting for you.

Panel vans were working vans. There were no windows behind the front seats, and the rear bay was a dirty metal box smelling of pesticide and grease. Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi had used an identi...

Pete was relaxed around them, so Maggie tolerated them, but only when Pete was near.

Pike didn’t know what he would find or if he would find anything, but the Malibu’s back seat was filled with their duffels and sleeping bags. Pike checked to make sure no one was watching, then used a...

Pike got out of the car, took off the long-sleeved shirt, then went to the trunk. He looked through the things Ronnie had left. He drank half a bottle of Arrowhead water, then collected his SOG fighti...

Pike hung up, and I stood in the center of the kitchen and listened to the silence. Someone had been in my home, and it made me feel creepy and violated and angry. I pulled out the Dan Wesson, sat it...

Pike hung up. He knew he couldn’t convince Darko with more talk. Darko would have to convince himself, and now he would either show or he wouldn’t.

Pike made the Corolla for an early ’90s model. It was dark brown in color with mismatched wheels and rusty acne on the trunk. Pike copied the plate number. He stayed between three and four cars behind...

Pike rolled down his window and motioned them over. Pike spoke Spanish pretty well, along with French, gutter German, a little Vietnamese, a little Arabic, and enough Swahili to make himself understoo...

Pike said, This is dim mak. That’s Chinese. It means death touch. Dim mak was the dark side of acupuncture; in one, pressure points were used to heal, in the other, to damage.

Pike slipped behind the wheel of his Jeep, lowered the sun visor, then started the engine. None of the three men looked toward the enormous Do-It-Yourself parking lot across the street. They would hav...

Pike studied her. She was pretty and used to it, and the clothes and the hair indicated she liked being the center of attention, which would be a problem. The Savile Row suits were still piling up bag...

Pike was focused on Dru. She had thrown on shorts and a faded T-shirt in her rush to the shop, and now her hair was mussed and her feet were smudged with green. Pike thought the smart eyes seemed worr...

Pretty soon Joe Pike came back, scrubbed and fresh and bright-eyed. It’s never easy to tell if someone is bright-eyed when they’re wearing sunglasses, but one makes certain assumptions.

Scott slapped on their flashers, and pushed out of their car. The flashers painted the street and surrounding buildings with blue kaleidoscope pulses. Stephanie

Scott squeaked approval, stayed her, and went to his car. Maggie sensed something was wrong by the change in his gait. She desperately wanted to follow, but Scott had stayed her. She obeyed, but whimp...

She asked me why I always had something flip to say. I said that I didn’t know, but having been blessed with the gift, I felt obliged to use it.

She spoke in a fast rush. Can’t talk. Meet me in forty minutes. Say where. Forty minutes. Not half an hour or an hour. Forty. Like we were Ukrainian spies. We

She touched the dash again, watching her fingers move along the gentle lines. You always follow the money. She shook her head and made a little smile. I’ve been doing this for twelve years. I’ve prose...