Robert Crais Quotes

The lifter didn’t seem to be paying a lot of attention, but the buzz cut was looking at everything. He scanned the storefronts and alleys and rooflines, his ice blue eyes moving in an unhurried, pract...

The line went dead as I checked the mirror. The blue Dodge was back, but didn’t stay long. It appeared twice more, never closer than three or four cars, and I never picked out the cars that replaced i...

The man’s breathing grew shallow and steady, his heartbeat slowed, and when the surge of his pulse grew no slower, Maggie knew he was sleeping. She lifted her head enough to see him, but seeing him wa...

The next day I watched TV and read and lay on the couch and stared at my high-vaulted ceiling. Just after noon I showered and shaved and dressed and took a drive over to the County Medical Facility an...

The press still called, though with less frequency, and I avoided them. I listened to talk radio and gained weight, as if I felt a hunger that I couldn’t satisfy.

The rocks and rotten branches cut into Daniel’s back. He took a tentative breath, and heard a wet popping in his chest. He coughed, but all that came out was aborted vomit. Daniel

The sun was low above Catalina, pushing bright yellow rectangles up my eastern wall when the door opened and Joe Pike walked in. I tipped what was maybe the second or third Modelo bottle at him. Life...

The two men shook hands, then the cowboy walked through the main gate to an anonymous Buick and drove away. Watching

The woman with the thick waist showed us out through the cool of Frank Garcia’s home. Joe’s red Jeep Cherokee was parked beneath an elm tree at the curb. My car was parked behind it. Pike and I walked...

The yard and the walk outside grew crowded with cops and media people and rubberneckers from the neighborhood drawn by gathering news vans. Between questions I watched the on-air television talent fan...

The zen of housecleaning allows one to reach inner peace.

There is a machine-like quality to Joe, as if he had tuned his body the way he might tune his Jeep, and, as the Jeep was perfectly tuned, so was his body. It was easy to imagine him doing a thousand p...

There were dozens of limos and taxis and MBs and Jaguars. Suitcases were going in and out and doormen in red uniforms were whistling for the next taxi in line and guys I took to be tourists who looked...

These dogs are not machines, goddamnit. They are alive! They are living, feeling, warm-blooded creatures of God, and they will love you with all their hearts! They will love you when your wives and hu...

This man took my last son. No one could claim my hurt, or my anger. No one could have a greater claim on this one’s life. Her voice was tight and fierce. She patted Ray’s arm. There’s been enough kill...

Though I did manage to gain a bit of intelligence when I was in Stu’s office. Ah. I knew that she had. You could see that in her eyes, too. A kind of ferocious twinkle.

Twenty-eight days after the towers, Pike and I finished sealing the deck. It was slick and gleaming and smelled of marine-grade varnish. After the varnish had cured, we put the deck chairs and the Web...

Video cams set up on a little platform at the rear of a place that might be called a grand ballroom if you thought small.

Vincent said, You never answered my question. What question was that? Down south. You think we faced off before? No. How you know that for sure? You’d be dead. That’s funny. The boys told me the same...

WALSH AND FOUR AGENTS from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms arrived at Cole’s house an hour later. Two stayed with their cars, but two male agents came in with Walsh—a tough-looking Latin...