We need readers,” muttered Daniel Chard. “More readers. Fewer writers. - Robert Galbraith

The country was lumbering towards election day. Strike turned in early on Sunday and watched the day's gaffes, counterclaims and promises being tabulated on his portable TV. There was an air of joylessness in every news report he watched. The national debt was so huge that it was diffcult to comprehend. Cuts were coming, whoever won; deep, painful cuts; and sometimes, with their weasel words, the party leaders reminded Strike of the surgeons who had told him cautiously that he might experience a degree of discomfort; they who would never personally feel the pain that was about to be inflicted.

Then he closed his eyes, and like millions of his fellow humans, wondered why troubles could never come singly, but in avalanches, so that you became increasingly destabilized with every blow that hit you.

…difficile est longum subito deponere amoren, difficile est, uerum hoc qua lubet efficias… …it is hard to throw off long-established love: Hard, but this you must manage somehow…