The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent.

My friend wants to get moving and so do I,' Eddie said. 'We've got miles to go yet.' I know that. It's on your face, son. Like a scar.' Eddie was fascinated by the idea of duty and ka as something that left a mark, something that might look like decoration to one eye and disfigurement to another. Outside, thunder cracked and lightning flashed.

The bad ideas kind of just drop out of the mix. You forget about them. The good ones stick around.

Until that afternoon in October four years ago, I hadn't known dogs could scream.

Black as night and as beautiful as forever.

I'm still in love with what I do, with the idea of making things up, so hours when I write always feel like very blessed hours to me.

In a brilliant fusion of fact and fiction, Jayne Anne Phillips has written the novel of the year. It's the story of a serial killer's crimes and capture, yes, but it's also a compulsively readable story of how one brave woman faces up to acts of terrible violence in order to create something good and strong in the aftermath. Quiet Dell will be compared to In Cold Blood, but Phillips offers something Capote could not: a heroine who lights up the dark places and gives us hope in our humanity.