Steve Martini > Quotes

“He lied with a smile that paralyzed reason." [Abby Chandlis - main character of The List]”
― Steve Martini

“We live in a time where increasingly our national leaders are more like dons of crime than statesmen, where notions of plausible deniability replace truth, and claims that politicians never knew of evil done in their own names by others are commonplace. It is the age of unbridled arrogance and video showmanship, where the challenge ' prove what I knew and when I knew it ' has become a national motto.”
― Steve Martini, Undue Influence

“What Harry means is, he has a taste for “felonious voyeurism.” It happens. Lawyers, judges, cops, and jurors all find themselves titillated from time to time by the stories of violence, drugs, and sex. The criminal side of the law provides a window on the dark side of life that exists nowhere else.”
― Steve Martini, Compelling Evidence

“He is a perfect politician: glib, superficial, manipulative; a great sense of self and a natural talent for a profession for which lying is usually listed at the top of the job decription. In short, the clinical definition of your average sociopath.”
― Steve Martini, Double Tap

“My partner has no use for what passes as journalism these days, particularly on the tube. According to Harry, they spend too much time in deep admiration for politicians who show particular skill in lying, so much so that they have now institutionalized the destruction of public ethics by elevating deceit to a statecraft called “spin.” It is no longer the lie that matters but the qualitative fashion in which it is told. We”
― Steve Martini, The Arraignment

“With books as with most things in life, when you’re successful, it’s always good to have a second act.”
― Steve Martini, Shadow Of Power

“In this country, a federal grand jury probe is the closest thing to Courts of Inquisition or a Star Chamber that exists. There are few rights, nothing that comes close to cross-examination, and no right to counsel inside the jury room. There are no real rules of evidence. The only thing they can’t do is torture you, and on that you must take the government’s word.”
― Steve Martini, Critical Mass

“law to exclude Mr. Rath, it can exercise its”
― Steve Martini, Compelling Evidence

“to exonerate him. Given the personalities involved, Skarpellos and Lama, I would suddenly discover that Tony was playing cribbage with a dozen elderly matrons the night Ben was killed. “Suspects are your job,” I tell Nelson. “I think we’re satisfied with the defendant we have. All we need to know is who helped her. Who carried the body, used the shotgun,” he says. “It’s an offer made to fail. Even if she were willing to enter a plea to a crime she didn’t commit in order to save her life, she can’t fulfill the terms.” He looks at me, like “Nice story, but it won’t wash.” Lama kicks in. “Have you heard,” he says, “we got a photo ID party goin’ down at the office? Seems the lady was a creature of habit. Ended up at the same place every night. A motel clerk from hell says she brought her entire stable of studs to his front door. We got him lookin’ at pictures of all her friends. Only a matter of time. Then the deal’s off.” Harry meets this with some logic. “To listen to you, our client already had all the freedom she could ask for. Lovers on every corner, and a cozy home to come home to when she got tired,” says Harry. “Why would she want to kill the meal ticket?” “Seems the victim was getting a little tired of her indiscretions. He was considering a divorce,” says Nelson. “You have read the prenuptial agreement? A divorce, and it was back to work for your client.” Harry and I look at one another. “Who told you Ben was considering a divorce?” I ask. “We have a witness,” says Nelson. He is not the kind to gloat over bad news delivered to an adversary. “You haven’t disclosed him to us.” “True,” he says. “We discovered him after the prelim. We’re still checking it out. When we have everything we’ll pass it along. But I will tell you, it sounds like gospel.” Lama’s expression is Cheshire cat-like, beaming from the corner of the couch. I sense that this is his doing. “I think you should talk to your client. I’m sure she’ll see reason,” says Nelson. “If you move, I think I can convince the judge to go along with the deal.” “I’ll have to talk to her,” I tell him, “but I can’t hold out much hope.” “Talk,” he says. “But let me know your answer soon. If we’re going to trial, I intend to ask for an early date.”
― Steve Martini, Compelling Evidence

“What made him mad was the constant drumming on CNN, telling everybody that the economy was just fine. The news media, or whatever they were calling themselves these days, had become nothing but a mouthpiece for the federal government, parroting press releases from the White House. If the president took a crap in public, they’d report that he shit gold bricks. If”
― Steve Martini, Critical Mass

“desk to me. “She had her hair cut like Meg Ryan, the movie star. Everybody”
― Steve Martini, The Attorney (Paul Madriani #5

“Some US leaders invited the destitute of the world to cross their leaking borders with assurances that they would be entitled to the same.”
― Steve Martini, The Enemy Inside

“American leaders sat by watching as vast sectors of their heavy industry hemorrhaged and ultimately fled offshore. Factories that didn’t leave closed down. Some politicians actually assisted these industries”
― Steve Martini, The Enemy Inside

“can explain what he was doing watching Madelyn Chapman. And putting Ruiz on the stand would be like lighting a torch to find your way through a dark powder magazine. Even assuming that the jury would believe him, without knowing what secrets lurk in his background, putting Emiliano up for Templeton to take a shot at is not something I would choose to do. Though the final decision as to whether to testify rests with the defendant, it is not something I can recommend to him. I am fearful that Templeton would take him apart on the stand, especially given Emiliano’s death wish in lieu of life without parole. Tonight I am huddled over the keyboard of the desktop in my study, doing a Google search online to learn how my computer works. I am taking Jim Kaprosky’s advice, checking out the nature of spyware and looking for the two items that he mentioned during my visit to his house last night. When I got to the car I scrawled the words mirror software and looking glass on the back of one of my business cards. Tonight the note is sitting on my desk next to the keyboard. When Harold Klepp mentioned the word spyware that night at the bar, I thought he was using shorthand to describe Chapman’s Primis package, high-level security software intended to allow the government to plumb the depths of personal information. I was wrong. Klepp may have been out of the loop at Isotenics, but he was hearing things from someone closer to the center of the action.”
― Steve Martini, Double Tap

“I had to pick one, I’d say it was that Ed Pack was a stand-up guy and a good father.”
― Steve Martini, Blood Flag

“that matter what’s swimming in it.”
― Steve Martini, The Enemy Inside

“America’s partisan divide went global.”
― Steve Martini, The Enemy Inside

“Maybe they should take a closer look at the people they elect.”
― Steve Martini, The Enemy Inside

“Democracy was expendable. Money could still be made. China needed capital from the West to fuel its modernization on the mainland.”
― Steve Martini, The Enemy Inside

“They extolled America as the “great melting pot” and in the next breath engaged in dangerous games, pitting one group against another, then summed it all up by saying that “Americans needed to come together!”
― Steve Martini, The Enemy Inside

“them both around, two figures dancing in the shadows in a death waltz. He lashed out wildly and spun his body, picking up speed like a bronco trying to dislodge the man from his back.”
― Steve Martini, Blood Flag

“The reality was that in America the truly rich had regiments of lawyers and accountants with numberless schemes to avoid taxes.”
― Steve Martini, The Enemy Inside

“he was, sitting in a comfortable car, sweating blood because the man was ten minutes late. He”
― Steve Martini, Blood Flag

“sleep. He thought about turning on the car’s”
― Steve Martini, Blood Flag

“what was happening just in time to watch the flaming pickup truck start on its fiery trek down the hill. Fuel spilling from the vehicle’s gas tank left a blazing track behind it on the bare earth as the truck streaked down the steep firebreak on the side of the hill. It”
― Steve Martini, Blood Flag

“Every government on the globe was crawling up your behind to keep tabs on you like you were their puppet.”
― Steve Martini, The Enemy Inside

“frequency, which tend to swallow”
― Steve Martini, The Enemy Inside

“says Tresler. “Get the hell outta here. Can’t you”
― Steve Martini, The Arraignment

“We are a society that sheds spouses and takes on new lovers faster than a raja can work through his harem. We dissolve entire families on a whimsy of lust. We pursue bald ambition as if it were the true religion, leaving our children to come home to empty houses, to fix their own meals, to cope with the crippling insecurities of adolescence, while we engage in an endless chase after the grail of possessions. And we have the audacity to wonder who killed the innocence of childhood.”
― Steve Martini, Undue Influence

“America was in decline. While the United States was distracted with its Mideast adventures and its myopic focus on terrorism, China was busy investing in long-term infrastructure and industry, grabbing up critical global resources—oil, metals, and rare earth among others.”
― Steve Martini, The Enemy Inside