Duncan Mayer might brood on his misfortunes for years, or even decades, I thought, before erupting into action.

People hunger for epiphany, you think, they clamor for it, but, given a chance, who among us would actually recognize it? Or, having seen it, would choose to act?

Christie at one time worked as a pharmacist; it’s not surprising, then, that poison was among her preferred methods. In America, the FBI produces a regular report on homicidal techniques, filled with endless tables of grisly statistics that read like a catalogue of cruelty (“Other” being a particularly hair-raising survey of misanthropic inventiven

“And what made you two connect?” Meredith Blake is smiling and polite but shrewd: she has a grandmother’s face with a lawyer’s eyes, the way Lady Macbeth might have looked,

Novelists were running for mayor.

Life, we thought, goes on. The secret shame-filled triumph of the living over the dead.

This began in the age of London hansom cabs and gaslight and continues today.

“As a liberated young woman on the Pill, the men hope or expect me to be sexually available at all times. Of course, if I am, then I’m a whore. If I’m not, then I’m a prude.” “Is the work interesting, at least?” he asked. “This month we did profiles on John Ehrlichman and William F. Buckley. The latter written by William F. Buckley.” “That reminds

bullet made of ice that melts inside the body after being fired…