Maxwell Law

“This evening I spied her in the back orchard. I decided to sacrifice one of my better old shirts and carried it out to her. The weather’s been warm of late. Buds on the apple trees are ready to burst. Usually by this time of the year, at that time of day, the back orchard is full of screaming children. Damut’s boys were the only two. They were on the terrace below her, running through the slanted sunlight, chasing each other around tree trunks. She stood above them, like a merlin watching rabbits play.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“Where the smoke cleared, the crystal air, with some of the efficacy of faith, seemed to remove the mountains almost to the sea, bringing them so near that one might count the scarred glades on their wooded sides.”
― O. Henry, Delphi Complete Works of O. Henry

“There was no going back now. Rubber and metal could only take so much. The car could shatter and send its passengers into an elemental distillation of rock, flesh, blood, and ash. Alchemy, thought Mary, grimly. Too much bloody alchemy.”
― Susan Rowland, The Alchemy Fire Murder

“Ludicrous? Seems like wherever you go, trouble follows you.”
“Look, Deputy Lawson. I had nothing to do with all this. I was just have a beer and minding my own business until this woman sat down next to me and said, ‘Can you help me, Mr. Ludef…’ She didn’t even finish the sentence. The next thing I know she’s laying on the deck. I don’t know who she is or why she sought me out.”
“Seems like I’ve heard this story before. You have a nasty reputation of people dying around you.”
“You know better. That comes with the occupation.”
“And you know the drill. Don’t leave town until we get to the bottom of this.”
― Behcet Kaya, Treacherous Estate