Book notes

I glanced at the bed where I’d woken up this morning to Simply Another Day. And I thanked God that human beings don’t have the power to see into the future.

It caught Hendrik and lifted him, gasping and struggling, over the side and out to sea. Another wave roared across the deck and Blackthorne locked one arm through the wheel and the water passed him by. Now Hendrik was fifty yards to port. The wash sucked him back alongside, then a giant comber threw him high above the ship, held him there for a

Blackthorne and the other man swung the wheel to starboard. The ship hesitated then turned and cried out as the rocks, barely awash, found the side of the

and books had been pulled off bookcases and then put back upside down. The last seemed to annoy Nightingale more than was strictly appropriate. ‘It’s just carelessness,’ he said.

She was also quite tall for a little old lady,

New Scotland Yard was once an ordinary office block that was leased by the Met in the 1960s. Since then the interior of the senior offices had been refitted several times, most recently during the 1990s, easily the worst decade for institutional decor since the 1970s.

They say that editing a bad draft is far easier than composing on a blank page, and that’s true—I feel so confident in my writing just then. I keep finding turns of phrases that suit the text far better than Athena’s throwaway descriptions. I spot where the pacing sags, and I mercilessly cut out the meandering filler. I draw out the plot’s through

They’re so ugly that in a weird way, seeing her like this feels almost more intimate than being naked.

Later I would see that my mother’s broken English was far more beautiful than my perfect one. She had a strong voice, writers would say. ‘I got no wave’ is so much more evocative than ‘My phone isn’t getting reception’.