Brook’s Reviews > Murder Takes a Vacation > Status Update

“Part of her youthful affect was her hair, which she wore in a defiant antistyle, a long braid down her back…Tess blurted out her thoughts with a toddler’s impulsiveness, albeit with a much better vocabulary, one often studded with literary allusions and arcane facts…Her mind worked in a way that made sense to her, but almost no one else could follow her line of thought except her husband…”

“Mrs. Blossom reminded herself of her new rule: whatever was happening, there was not only a likely explanation, but a banal one.”

“Large people know a lot about shrinking. They are forced to do it all the time. Mrs. Blossom could never be small, but she knew ways to seem smaller. She collapsed in on herself, rolling up like a potato bug, which had been her father’s name for pill bugs. Only a potato bug who could keep walking even as she scrunched and compressed her body.”

“People were always anxious to ignore an older woman with a map. God forbid, she might come up to you and ask a question! It was counterintuitive, but sometimes making a spectacle of one’s self was the best way to deflect suspicion.”

“‘Promise me you’ll wear the sunglasses and the scarf every day. They go with everything. And people are nicer to you when they think you’re chic.’

‘That’s ridiculous. And *offensive,* frankly. Everyone deserves kindness.’

He shrugged. ‘Lots of true things are offensive. Doesn’t make them any less true.’”