The dead could only speak through the mouths of those left behind, and through the signs they left scattered behind them. - Robert Galbraith

You can’t plot murder like a novel. There are always loose ends in real life.

"It's an illness," she said, although she made the words sound like "it's uh nillness."
Nillness, thought Strike, for a second distracted. Sometimes illness turned slowly to nillness, as was happening to Bristow's mother... sometimes nillness rose to meet you out of nowhere, like a concrete road slamming your skull apart.

Couples tended to be of roughly equivalent personal attractiveness, though of course factors such as money often seemed to secure a partner of significantly better looks than oneself.