Actually I can't stand the man. Sanctimonious, Calvinistic, so-and-so. Totally unsympathetic -can't think why he became a doctor - hectoring, bullyin… - William Boyd

He saw that she treated her marriage to his father as a relentless challenge, an unending struggle under adverse conditions to get her own way. At first this manifested itself only in the naming of her children, but lately, as she had come to know her enemy, or as he had grown more senile and eccentric, evidence of her own personality long-suppressed came increasingly to the fore.

I turned off Sunset Boulevard and drove up Micheltoreno to the site. The day was cloudy and an erratic and nervy wind rattled the leaves of the palmettos that the contractor had planted along the roadside. As I pulled into the curb at number 2265 I saw the old man"

I want you to get to know Murray because I want you to bribe him."