Coffee arrived and the espresso was excellent, like an aromatic electric fence.

Actually I'd always thought he sat in the library with a slim volume of metaphysical poetry until the commissioner called him on the bat phone and summoned him into action. Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale - to the Jag mobile.

...good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport - like base-jumping or crocodile-wrestling.

It's a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others.

On the plus side, there were no rioters in sight but on the minus side this was probably because everywhere I looked was on fire.

In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.

The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with and ology tacked on the end.