Intensely vivid characters, terrible crimes, and a brutal deep-frozen landscape all prove beyond a reasonable doubt that cold nurtures good and evil as readily as heat ... and that Giles Blunt is a really tremendous crime novelist.

Some old guy once said that the meaning of life is that it ends.

I'd never believed in luck. Never had any cause to. Never relied on it, because I never could.

You see something scary, you should stand up and step toward it, not away from it. Instinctively, reflexively, in a raging fury.

It gives me some kind of chance to survive the night." "How are those better odds? If you come back with me, you're guaranteed to survive the night." "No," Reacher said. "If I come back with you, I'm guaranteed to die of shame.

Evaluate. Long experience had taught me to evaluate and assess. When the unexpected gets dumped on you, don’t waste time. Don’t figure out how or why it happened. Don’t recriminate. Don’t figure out whose fault it is. Don’t work out how to avoid the same mistake next time. All of that you do later. If you survive.

Everything you could want - action, suspense, character and setting, all floating on the easy lyricism of a fine writer at the top of his game.