Talking of the local Sheriff, Jake Valentine, tall and skinny and his wife Myra, "She was a short woman, maybe five feet tall in her socks, the top of her head not quite reaching Jake's chest. What she lacked in height she made up for in girth. Jeffrey guessed she was at least a hundred pounds overweight. Standing side by side, the Valentines looked like the living embodiment of the number ten.

I grew up reading crime fiction and, especially in the '80s, women were just there to be saved or screwed.

Long Gone is the type of book that should come with a warning. It’s a compulsively readable, highly addictive story. The ending will leave you breathless.

Alafair Burke understands the criminal mind. Long Gone is both an education and an entertainment of the first order. This is a very clever and very smart novel by a very clever and smart writer. The dialogue crackles, the plot is intriguing, and the pacing is perfect.

I was with a real jerk after the first heartbreak, and once I did the prerequisite eating an entire cake and singing "All By Myself" in the shower, I realized that people treat you badly when you let them, and that I had to respect myself and not let anyone else treat me that way again. If someone really loves you, they are your biggest champion, not your biggest detractor.

[On men:] ... you never know what they're like until you get them home and take them out of their packages.

Like every Southern writer, I thought that I needed to write the next Gone With the Wind.