Death in anonymity is the ultimate insult to human dignity.

One of the surprising things I hadn't expected when I decided to write crime fiction is how much you are expected to be out in front of the public. Some writers aren't comfortable with that. I don't have a problem with that.

Today he wore a burnt-orange shirt, black pants, and a tie that looked like a street fight at the south end of the color wheel.

Who's going to rob us? A crackhead crab? A jellyfish junkie?

I see you, Ben. I always have. You're in my pack." He pulled away. "What if being packmates isn't enough for me?

Though Anne was born in Alabama and schooled in Mississippi, she had traveled North, and, like many Southerners, gained a theoretical understanding of the concept of cold. But the mind is an overprotective parent. What it doesn't care for, it hides. Like many inhabiting the subtropics, Anne had repressed the reality of subzero mercury.

I hated myself for needing him at such times, for craving his strength whenever I felt upset.