Ex Inledningen till kapitel 8:

8   Bunker Hill is Old Town, lost town, shabby town, crook town. Once, very long ago, it was the choice recidential district of the city, and there are still standing a few jigsaw Gothic mansions with wide porches and walls covered with round-end shingles and full corner bay windows with spindle turrets. They are all rooming houses now, their parquetry floors are scratched and worn through the once glossy finish and the wide sweeping staircases are dark with time and with cheap varnish laid on over generations of dirt. In the tall rooms haggard landladies bicker with shafty tenants. On the wide cool front porches, reaching their cracked shoes into the sun, and staring at nothing, sit the old men with faces like lost battles.

ELLER När han möter sin klient:

It was so dark in there at first I couldn´t see anything but the outdoor light coming through thick bushes and screens. Then I saw that the room was sort of sun porch that had been allowed to get completely overgrown outside. It was furnished with grass rugs and reed stuff. There was a reed chaise longue over by the window. It had a curved back and enough cushions to stuff an elephant and there was a woman leaning back on it with a wine glass in her hand. I could smell the thick scented alcoholic odor of the wine before I could see her proporly. Then my eyes got used to the light and I could see her.

She had a lot of face and chin. She had a pewter-coloured hair set in a ruthless permanent, a hard beak and large moist eyes with the sympathetic expression of wet stones. There was lace at her throat, but it was the kind of throat that would have looked better in a footbll sweater. She wore a grayish silk dress. Her thick arms were bare and mottled. There were jet buttons in her ears. There was a low glass-topped table beside her and a bottle of port on the table. She sipped from the glass she was holding and looked at me over it and said nothing.

 Och så håller det på till sid 146  – där det första liket dyker upp!

Bilden på ”The cover”, den enda som gives- skildrar, när PM är där för att ta reda på vad som hänt – gömmer sig och ett ”skumt par” uppenbarar sig. De argumenterar, misstänker uppenbarligen varandra för dådet:

sid 155

He stepped forward and swung a fist. It caught her on the side of the face and she went down and sat on the floor, a long leg straight out in front of her, one hand to her jaw, her very blue eyes looking up at him.

Sedan sker allt slag i slag – RC hänvisar till tidigare  skildrade episoder som förklarar  hur allt förhåller sig och på sista sidan 185 visar det sig att Philip M manipulerat så att alla, inklusive polisen, blir nöjda ”with the outcome”.

 Det är verkligen läsvärt.

Jag får se till att läsa fler av RC!

 Detta var årets 25te lästa bok – det fattas bara 8 till för REKORRD