Strike was used to playing archaeologist among the ruins of people’s traumatised memories; - Robert Galbraith

. . . she'd seen a flicker of something in his face that wasn't mere friendship, and they'd hugged, and she'd felt . . .

Best not to dwell on that hug, on how like home it had felt, on how a kind of insanity had gripped her at that moment, and she'd imagined him saying 'come with me' and known she'd have gone if he had.

He was not a man who told himself comfortable lies.

In the inverted food chain of fame, it was the big beasts who were stalked and hunted