Quotes from Ann Cleeves

Perhaps it was healthier to hate your mother. Perhaps she should be grateful that Margaret had treated her like shit.

There hadn't even been the casual bad language she used herself to show that she was tired or cross. But still he'd shocked them because his anger was deep and real. They'd spent a week carefully putting words together, but his rage had a greater effect than any of their stories.

A tad jealous. She didn't have any personal experience of happy families.

There was nothing picturesque here. No thatch. It would never have featured in an episode of Midsomer Murders.

If she'd asked me to swim naked three times round the island, I'd have said yes. I loved her.

Oh, I'm interested in everything, Joe. That's why I'm a bloody brilliant detective.

How can you expect me to go away with you, with this hanging over us. Just sort it out!

They weren't sorry Catherine was dead at all. Certainly they hadn't particularly liked her when she was alive. Lisa had called her a stuck-up southern cow only last week, when Mr Scott had read out a chunk of her essay on Steinbeck. They were enjoying every minute of this. They weren't in the least sorry that Catherine would never take her place again in the front row for English. But she didn't say

That was the trouble when you got obsessed with a case: you lost perspective, saw everything through the prism of the investigation.

She got Wainwright to drive her up the

Every relationship for him was a sort of competition and he liked winning, even here when it was part of the job to be cooperative.

I found her a little irritating – she was one of those rather self-righteous women with a heightened belief in their own moral superiority

obligation to their parents. She said they don't ask to be born. The obligation all goes one way. I didn't see it then but now I think she

That woman's a ghoul – the delight she takes in other people's misery.

The cold from the rock seeped through her coat and into her bones.

She almost hoped someone would challenge her, because she was in the mood for a fight.

It gave people the right to pity me. And in my opinion, there is nothing more degrading than pity.

And while all those thoughts were rattling around in her brain something else was going on too. An excitement. Because this was a new case that was different from anything she'd ever worked before. Two bodies, connected but not lying together. And nothing made her feel as alive as murder.

She decided it was time to get out of the water. If she stayed any longer, she'd go wrinkled and prune-like. Even worse, she might fall asleep and wake up only when it was cold.

she'd never had a best friend, no one with whom she could share her dreams. The nearest she had was Joe Ashworth.

Almost, he hoped that there would be no afterlife; surely that would take energy and there were days now when he felt that he had no energy left.

Holly wondered how long it would be before he looked for promotion, a team of his own, and whether Vera would see that as progress – a validation of her skill as a mentor – or as betrayal.

Vera felt a twinge of sympathy. Perhaps the make-up and the sophisticated clothes were protection. Everyone had their own way of facing a hostile world.

He enjoyed moderating all that bile and aggression. He was entertained, and it made him feel powerful. It wasn't just me he had a go at. He picked on anyone vulnerable.