Quotes by Ed McBain

“He sees it in the juvenile street gangs, who live in fear of death and who propagate fear by inflicting death to banish fear. And he sees it at its worst, as the result of violent emotions bursting into the mind and erupting from the hands.”

“He sees death in the prostitutes who have witnessed the death of honor, and daily multiply the death of love, who bleed away their own lives 50 times a day beneath the relentless stabbings of countless conjugations.”

“A detective sees death in all the various forms at least five times a week.”

“He sees death in convicted thieves, the burglars, the muggers, the con men, the pimps, a death imposed by law, the gradual death of confinement behind bars.”

“Fiddlers ... doesnt fit the profile.”

The body lay outside an abandoned, boarded-up theater. The theater had started as a first-run movie house, many years back when the neighborhood had still been fashionable. As the neighborhood began rotting, the theater began showing second-run films, and then old movies, and finally foreign-language films.