Investigator Quotes

“Satisfied, Sundae trotted to a bush near the lake, dug vigorously for some seconds and pulled out a bone deliciously covered in mud and bits of vegetation. She took her prize to a still-sunny patch of grass and began to gnaw at it. Two magpies, their greyish necks identifying them as juveniles, landed on a nearby branch. Sundae paused, eyes flicking up to stare at the birds, then returned to attend to the bone. One of the magpies swooped down and landed on the lawn a couple of metres away from the dog. Sunny’s top lip trembled up in the prelude of a snarl. The magpie approached the dog. Sundae’s body tensed, lip furling up further, eyes focused on the agitator. The magpie inched closer. When it was half a metre away, Sundae launched. The bird flew back to the branch next to its companion. Then both birds threw their heads back and let out a rollicking call; it sounded like laughter. Rumbling a growl, Sundae returned to her bone, casting baleful glares at the birds as she gnawed.
Saskia and Tania chuckled.
“For all of my life, I have watched the magpies and dogs of Woodgrove play this game,” Tania said. “And every time I see it, I have to laugh.”
― Miriam Verbeek, The Forest: A thrilling international crime novel

“Saskia lay back again, closing her eyes and continued eating mandarin wedges. After a pause, she added, “I think that the biggest danger for people like you and me is that we start blaming people for things that happen to us. Bullies smell that kind of thing from miles away. People like you and me have to stop thinking about our limitations and start thinking about our talents and not let other people define us.”
― Miriam Verbeek, The Forest: A thrilling international crime novel

“The molecular structure of my body has been replaced with nanostructures. They assemble DNA to do extraordinary things. The nano-DNA regenerates cellular structures at the atomic level as my body passes through things.
My head hurts trying to process everything. You better not come through any of my walls!
Not a chance. I’d be too afraid you might kill me.”
― H. Meadow Hopewell, Rage Against the Machine

“They both start with a B. Do you think Baudelaire sounds like Bernhardt?" Her niece eyed her for a moment, then shook her head. "Mommy always says you say the strangest things.”
― Theasa Tuohy, Mademoiselle le Sleuth

“With my home secured as much as I could make it, I went to buy a gun. ”
― Steven Decker, INNOCENT AGAIN: A LEGAL THRILLER

“Margeaux? Everything okay?”
All I could hear was her crying on the other end.
“Margeaux? Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“It’s…It’s Deloris! Jack, she came down with the virus several days ago. It turned serious very quickly. I called for an ambulance, but they wouldn’t even let me go to the hospital with her.”
― Behcet Kaya, Deception: A Jack Ludefance Novel

“But things had changed, and now she sat in her car outside her childhood residence staring at an open gate with a fifteen-inch Bowie knife in her lap, thinking. ”
― Chad Boudreaux, Homecoming Queen

“So, wait. Now I’m confused. What about the senator’s son, the guy that fell? The Olmsteds hired you to investigate their son’s death and you end up investigating the senator? Swamp, you’re acting really weird. The man’s paying your fees. I don’t follow the logic.”
― Behcet Kaya, Murder in Buckhead

“Flashes of disbelief trekked in multiple directions. Each one faded into despair.”
― Steve Rush, Lethal Impulse

“My best advice to myself was to act like I’d been there before. I was in way over my head, and I was not skating down the line between good and bad anymore. I tried to justify my actions by reminding myself that it was part of my investigation but even I couldn’t fool myself that much.
I drained my glass and then drained the one that Sara handed me. In no way, was this evening turning out to have career building opportunity written on it. I was getting more nervous by the minute.”
― Michael Deeze

“I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.”
― Jim Garrison

“The indescribable pleasure—which pales the rest of life's joys—is abundant compensation for the investigator who endures the painful and persevering analytical work that precedes the appearance of the new truth, like the pain of childbirth. It is true to say that nothing for the scientific scholar is comparable to the things that he has discovered. Indeed, it would be difficult to find an investigator willing to exchange the paternity of a scientific conquest for all the gold on earth. And if there are some who look to science as a way of acquiring gold instead of applause from the learned, and the personal satisfaction associated with the very act of discovery, they have chosen the wrong profession.”
― Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Advice for a Young Investigator

“Bobby was a pretty boy. All looks no substance. Oh you know the kind, on the fringe, never gonna be a roller, but always gonna be the roller’s best friend. Never gonna hit the homerun, but damn sure gonna be happy with the singles, doubles and maybe a few triples.” She shrugged, “that was Bobby Dey-Dey.”
― Michael Deeze, The Deathbed Confessions

“Oh, she’d let justice take its course…

Because justice, as everyone knew, was a woman.”
― Kerrigan Byrne, Dancing With Danger

“It wasn’t bullets that killed her father. It was compromise, wrapped in a handshake.”
― Yarro Rai, Vice and Virtue

“Describing Robert Bunsen:
As an investigator he was great, as a teacher he was greater, as a man and friend he was greatest.”
― Henry Enfield Roscoe

“You must be passionate, you must dedicate yourself, and you must be relentless in the pursuit of your goals. If you do, you will be successful.”
― Steve Garvey

“In the artifacts that are conscious, memories of vanished lives still flicker. Tissues that were changed without dying hold the moment that a boy heard his sister was leaving home. They hold multiplication tables. They hold images of sexuality and violence and beauty. They hold the memories of flesh that no longer exists. They hold metaphors: mitochondria, starfish, Hitler’s-brain-in-a-jar, hell realm. They dream. Structures that were neurons twitch and loop and burn and dream. Images and words and pain and fear, endless.”
― James S.A. Corey, Cibola Burn

“Life as a private investigator, slash bounty hunter wasn’t all Gary Beck wanted it to be. There weren’t any big mansions on a palm beach owned by an affluent writer generous enough to let him live rent-free and use his spare Ferrari. But then you have to ask yourself, what could you expect living on a planet like Deanna? As a third-rate colony in the Terran Empire, Deanna had more than its fair share of dull moments. It orbits a star called Ramalama. If you think that’s funny, Deanna’s two moons are called Ding and Dong, respectively (this is a local joke) and one of them falls down occasionally.”
― Christina Engela, Black Sunrise

“You can tell he never even considered the possibility of something like this happening to him. He's as out of his element hiring an investigator to snoop on his wife as he would be auditioning for a Russian ballet.”
― Caspar Vega, The Pink Beetle

“I am a biological detective.”
― Steven Magee