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If you go into darkness, the darkness goes into you.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
“
it’s like the laws of physics—for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. If you go into darkness, the darkness goes into you. You then have to decide what to do with it. How to keep yourself safe from it. How to keep it from hollowing you out.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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why don’t you just Uber your ass out of here.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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And there’s this saying they have about conformist society: The nail that sticks out gets pounded down.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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They call him Stormy Monday, but he's kind of a dick every single day.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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Big evil. There was no doubt that the same callous malignancy moved through the blood of the shooter here.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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I’ve seen long careers and careers cut short. The difference is in how you handle the darkness.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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The doctor told her that more than thirty cops had showed up the night of her surgery to donate blood for her. He gave her a list of names. Many were from the late
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Michael Connelly (The Night Fire (Renée Ballard, #3; Harry Bosch, #22; Harry Bosch Universe, #33))
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It was the Holy Grail of detective work. It had nothing to do with evidence or legal procedure or probable cause. It was just knowing it in your gut. Nothing in her life beat it.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
“
She’s interested in Japanese history right now, so that’s what I’m reading to her. And there’s this saying they have about conformist society: The nail that sticks out gets pounded down.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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Michael Connelly is the author of twenty-nine previous novels, including #1 New York Times bestsellers The Wrong Side of Goodbye and The Crossing. His books, which include the Harry Bosch series and Lincoln Lawyer series, have sold more than sixty million copies worldwide. Connelly is a former newspaper reporter who has won numerous awards for his journalism and his novels and is the executive producer of Bosch, starring Titus Welliver. He spends his time in California and Florida.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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Bosch always thought that if you started with the assumption that murder is an unreasonable action, then how could there ever be a fully reasonable explanation for it? It was that understanding that kept him from watching and being able to enjoy films and television shows about detectives. He found them unrealistic in their delivery of what the general audience wanted: all of the answers.
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Michael Connelly (The Burning Room (Harry Bosch, #17; Harry Bosch Universe, #27))
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A preliminary hearing is a routine step on the way to a trial. It is one hundred percent the prosecution's show. The state is charged with presenting its case to the court and the judge then rules on whether there is sufficient evidence to take it forward to a jury trial. This isn't the reasonable doubt threshold. Not even close. The judge only has to decide if a preponderance of evidence supports the charges. If so, then the next stop is a full-blown trial.
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Michael Connelly (The Fifth Witness (The Lincoln Lawyer, #4; Harry Bosch Universe, #23))
Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
“
She had played the part in an episode of a television show called Bosch, which Ballard knew was based on the exploits of a now-retired LAPD detective who had formerly worked at RHD and the Hollywood detective bureau. The production occasionally filmed at the station and had underwritten the division’s last Christmas party at the W Hotel.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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If you go into darkness, the darkness goes into you. You then have to decide what to do with it. How to keep yourself safe from it. How to keep it from hollowing you out.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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The lurid descriptions of what lay between death and salvation conjure up a Hieronymus Bosch vision of hell, reflecting the universal horror of death and the desperate wish for eternal life. The ancient Egyptians’ fears ranged from the all-too-familiar afflictions of thirst and starvation to the peculiar horror of an upside-down world in which they would have to walk on their heads, drink urine, and eat excrement. The Coffin Texts show the human imagination at its most fevered. The
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Toby Wilkinson (The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt)
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Nothing came up on the pubic comb, because you don’t have a lot down there to comb. Bottom
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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John Brooks.’ Immediately, I thought of the odds. First of just surviving in such a place, next of surviving and then becoming a cop. ‘Vertical ghettos, each one of them. Me and John used to say it was the only time when you had to take the elevator up when you were going to hell.’ I just nodded. This was out of my realm completely. ‘And that’s only if the elevators were working,’ he added. I realized that I never considered that Brooks might be a black man. There was no photo in the computer printouts and no reason to mention race in the stories. I had just assumed he was white and it was an assumption I would have to analyze later. At the moment, I was trying to figure out what Washington was trying to tell me by taking me here. Washington pulled into a lot next to one of the buildings. There were a couple of dumpsters coated with decades of graffiti slogans. There was a rusted basketball backboard but the rim was long gone. He put the car in park but left it running. I didn’t know if that was to keep the heat flowing or to allow us a quick getaway if needed. I saw a small group of teenagers in long coats, their faces as dark as the sky, scurry from the building closest to us, then cross a frozen courtyard and hustle into one of the other buildings. ‘At this point you’re wondering what the hell you’re doing here,’ Washington said then. ‘That’s okay, I understand. A white boy like you.’ Again I said nothing. I was letting him run out his line. ‘See that one, third on the right. That was our building. I was on fourteen with my grand-auntie and John lived with his mother on twelve, one below us. They didn’t have no thirteen, already enough bad luck ’round here. Neither of us had fathers. At least ones that showed up.’ I thought he wanted me to say something but I didn’t know what. I had no earthly idea what kind of struggle the two friends must have had to make it out of the tombstone of a building he had pointed at. I remained mute. ‘We were friends for life. Hell, he ended up marrying my first girlfriend, Edna. Then on the department, after we both made homicide and trained with senior detectives for a few years, we asked to be partnered. And damn, it got approved. Story about us in the
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Michael Connelly (The Poet (Jack McEvoy, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #5))
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she was collateral damage,
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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Overreacting as usual,” Bosch said. “One fire and they’re all there, showing the flames. You know what that does? That’s like throwing gasoline on it. It will spread now. People will see that in their living rooms and go outside to see what is happening. Groups will form, things will be said and people won’t be able to back down from their anger. One thing will lead to another and we’ll have our media-manufactured riot.
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Michael Connelly (Angels Flight (Harry Bosch, #6; Harry Bosch Universe, #8))
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Crowley had got a commendation for the Spanish Inquisition. He had been in Spain then, mainly hanging around cantinas in the nicer parts, and hadn't even known about it until the commendation arrived. He'd gone to have a look, and had come back and got drunk for a week. That Hieronymous Bosch. What a weirdo. And just when you'd think they were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved. It was this free-will thing, of course. It was a bugger.
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Anonymous
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I've been strongly influenced, in technique as well as subject matter, by some of the early 20th-century book illustrators — Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac in particular, Burne-Jones and other Pre-Raphaelites, and the Arts-&-Crafts movement they engendered. I'm continually inspired by Rembrandt, Breughel (I've wondered whether his brilliant "Tower of Babel" had inspired Tolkien's description of Minas Tyrith), Hieronymous Bosch, Albrecht Durer, and Turner; it's not necessarily that they influence my work in any particular direction, more that their example raises my spirits, re-affirms my belief in the power of images to move and delight us, and shows me how much further I have to go, how much is possible. Having visited Venice and Florence for the first time, I am besotted with the Italian Renaissance artists — Botticelli, Bellini, da Vinci and others. Their work is calm, controlled, and yet each face and landscape contains such passion. In Botticelli's paintings, every pebble and every leaf is rendered with a religious devotion; there is reverence inherent in paying such close attention to every stone, turning painting itself into a form of worship, an act of prayer.
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Alan Lee
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Funny, Dad, but my generation is visual. We don’t tell people what other people are doing. We show what we’re doing. We put up photos.
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Michael Connelly (The Wrong Side of Goodbye (Harry Bosch, #19; Harry Bosch Universe, #29))
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In the contemporary Greek world it was Greek philosophy rather than Greek religion which nurtured morality (cf Malherbe 1986). The Greek gods were frequently represented as amoral if not immoral in their conduct. Strictly speaking, ethics was not regarded as a part of religion; the gods did not insist on a total break with the past or on a renunciation of all that was wrong (cf Green 1970: 144f). By contrast, the high moral standards of the Christian faith, like those of Judaism, were clearly to be attributed to religious influences, and many non-Christians noticed this. Christians were expected to belong, body and soul, to Christ, and this was to show in their conduct (:146). In the general mood of the time such demeanor could not but be noticeable.
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David J. Bosch (Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission)
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It is not possible to “un-know” what we have learned. To attempt to do this is, moreover, unnecessary. The “light” in the Enlightenment was real light and should not simply be discarded. What is needed, rather, is to realize that the Enlightenment paradigm has served its purpose; we should now move beyond it, taking what is valuable in it—with the necessary caution and critique—along with us into a new paradigm (cf Newbigin 1986:43). The point is that the Enlightenment has not solved all our problems. It has in fact created unprecedented new problems, most of which we have only begun to be aware of during the last two decades or so. The Enlightenment was supposed to create a world in which all people were equal, in which the soundness of human reason would show the way to happiness and abundance for all. This did not materialize. Instead, people have become the victims of fear and frustrations as never before. As far back as 1950 Romano Guardini, in his book on “the end of the modern era,” again and again pointed to this legacy of the Enlightenment. The terms he used to describe it included fear, disenchantment, threat, a feeling of being abandoned, doubt, danger, alienation, and anxiety (:43, 55f, 61, 84, 94f). He summarizes, All monsters of the wilderness, all horrors of darkness have reappeared. The human person again stands before the chaos; and all of this is so much more terrible, since the majority do not recognize it: after all, everywhere scientifically educated people are communicating with one another, machines are running smoothly, and bureaucracies are functioning well (:96—my translation).
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David J. Bosch (Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission)
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The church has an eschatological horizon and is, as proleptic manifestation of God's reign, the beachhead of the new creation, the vanguard of God's new world, and the sign of the dawning new age in the midst of the old (cf Beker 1980:313; 1984:41). At the same time it is precisely as these small and weak Pauline communities gather in worship to celebrate the victory already won and to pray for the coming of their Lord (“Marana tha !”), that they become aware of the terrible contradiction between what they believe on the one hand and what they empirically see and experience on the other, and also of the tension in which they live, the tension between the “already” and the “not yet.” “Christ the first fruits” has already risen from the dead (1 Cor 15:23) and the believers have been given the Spirit as “guarantee” of what is to come (2 Cor 1:22; 5:5), but there does not seem to be much apart from these “first fruits” and “pledge.” Like Abraham, they believe in hope against hope (Rom 4:18) and accept in faith the Spirit's witness that they are children and heirs of God and therefore fellow heirs with Christ—provided, says Paul, “we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:17). God will triumph, notwithstanding our weakness and suffering, but also in the midst of and because of and through our weakness and suffering (cf Beker 1980:364f). Faith is able to bear the tension between the confession of God's ultimate triumph, and the empirical reality of this world, for it knows that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom 8:37) and that “in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (8:28). Nowhere has Paul portrayed this unbearable (and precisely for this reason bearable!) tension more profoundly than in 2 Corinthians 4:7-10: But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. Our Christian life in this world thus involves an inescapable tension, oscillating between joy and agony. Whereas, on the one hand, suffering and weakness become all the more intolerable and our agonizing, because of the terrifying “not yet,” intensifies, we can, on the other hand, already “rejoice in our sufferings” (Rom 5:2). This means that our life in this world must be cruciform; Paul bears on his body “the marks of Jesus” (Gal 6:17; cf Col 1:24), he carries “in the body the death of Jesus,” and while he lives he is “always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor 4:10f) (cf also Beker 1980:145f, 366f; 1984:120).
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David J. Bosch (Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission)
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Are you okay?” he asked. “I’m fine, yeah,” she said. She wiped tears off her cheeks. “Somebody who totally fucked me over died today,” she said. “Then why are you sad?” he asked. “I mean, fuck him. If it was a him.” “I don’t know. I guess because it means what he did can never be changed. His death makes it permanent.” “I think I get that.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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The coroner herself, Jayalalithaa Panneerselvam, was on scene.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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The nail that sticks out gets pounded down.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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Stevens, a well-known actress and singer Bosch recognized from appearances on the television shows Hawaiian Eye and 77 Sunset Strip.
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Michael Connelly (The Wrong Side of Goodbye (Harry Bosch, #19; Harry Bosch Universe, #29))
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New York Times bestsellers The Wrong Side of Goodbye and The Crossing. His books, which include the Harry Bosch series and Lincoln Lawyer series, have sold more than
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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I DON’T REMEMBER what year it was that I started noticing apocalyptic language in the art classes I taught at Stanford. I just remember the student who made a detailed, animated triptych based on The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymus Bosch. The three collages got darker and bleaker from left to right. “It’s kind of like…the sunset of humanity,” the student said, laughing nervously. Or the student who, standing in front of a projector screen showing his 3-D project and tasked with explaining it, said in a small but tortured voice, “Well, I just feel like the world is ending and all that,” at which everyone mutely nodded. I remember thinking it seemed vulgar to continue on talking about vectors and shaders after that. And I remember wanting to run across the classroom and give that student a hug.
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Jenny Odell (Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond Productivity Culture)
Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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KMA—I’m heading to scene. KMA was an old LAPD designation used at the end of a radio call. Some said it stood for Keep Me Apprised but in use it was the equivalent of over and out. Over time it had evolved to mean end of watch or, in this case, the victim’s death.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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There is no need for this ‘fluid situation,’ as you say,” he said. “The system only works if we catch the guy,” Ballard said. “Don’t you see? Stopping the card from being used is only part of it. That protects your corporate client. It doesn’t protect Mrs. Lantana, who had someone inside her house.” “I am sorry,” the supervisor said. “I cannot help you without documentation from the courts. It is our protocol.” “What is your name?” “My name is Irfan.” “Where are you, Irfan?” “How do you mean?” “Are you in Mumbai? Delhi? Where?” “I am in Mumbai, yes.” “And that’s why you don’t give a shit. Because this guy’s never going to come into your house and steal your wallet in Mumbai. Thanks very much.” She stepped back into the kitchen and hung up the phone before the useless supervisor could respond.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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Who’s your training officer?” “Officer Smith, ma’am.” “I’m not your mother. Don’t call me ma’am.” “Sorry, ma’am. I mean—” “You’re in good hands with Smitty. He’s cool. You guys get an ID on the vic?” “No, there was no purse or anything but we were trying to talk to her while we were waiting on the paramedics. She was in and out, not making a lot of sense. Sounded like she said her name was Ramona.” “She say anything else?” “Yeah, she said ‘the upside-down house.’” “‘ The upside-down house’?” “That’s what she said. Officer Smith asked if she knew her attacker and she said no. He asked where she was attacked and she said ‘the upside-down house.’ Like I said, she wasn’t making a lot of sense.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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Now I’m no art critic, but in a time seen as a bridge between the late middle ages and the early renaissance, where the church played such a substantial part in the day to day running of people's lives, Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, which is painted on oak with a square middle panel flanked by two doors that close over the centre like shutters, is rather racy.
When the outer shutters are folded over they show a grisaille painting of the earth during creation. But it’s the three scenes of the inner triptych that fascinate me.
If you’re unfamiliar with the painting, I’ll do my best to describe it for you. Apologies in advance if I miss anything out.
It’s regular sort of stuff, you know, naked women being fondled by demons, a bloke being kissed by a pig dressed as a nun, another bloke being eaten by some kind of story book character while loads of blackbirds fly out of his arse, a couple locked in a glass sphere and – let’s not beat about the Bosch here – locked in each other’s embrace as well. There are loads of people feeding each other fruit, doing handstands, hatching out of eggs, climbing up ladders to get inside the bodies of other people and looking at demon’s arses.
There’s a couple getting caught shagging by giant birds, and a white bloke and a black Rastafarian with ‘locks (400 years before the Rastafari movement was founded) about to have a snog. You’ve got God giving Eve to a very puny-looking, limp-dicked Adam, and there’s a bunch of people sitting around a table inside the body of another bloke while an old woman fills up on wine from a decent-sized barrel while a kind of giant metal face pukes out loads of naked blokes who go running into a trumpet and another bloke being fed a cherry by a giant bird while a white bloke shows a black lady something in the sky.
It’s all going on!
There's loads of those ‘living dead’ mateys walking about, and a bloke carrying giant grapes past a topless girl with, it has to be said, pretty decent tits. She’s balancing a giant dice on her head while doing something strange to another bloke’s arse while a rabbit in clothes walks past. You can’t see what she’s doing because there’s a table in the way but beside them is a serpent-type creature with just one massive boob and a pretty pert nipple. One huge tit the size of his chest! Of all things, he’s holding a backgammon board up in the air.
I’d say Bosch was a tit man, wouldn’t you?
But there’s more. There’s a crowd of naked girls – black & white - in a water pool, all balancing cherries on their heads; read into that what you will. There are just LOADS of naked women in this water pool, including one of the black girls who’s balancing a peacock on her head. There are dozens of nudists riding horses around them in a circle. Some are sharing the same horse, so I must admit that in places it appears to be a little intimate.
And now what have we got! There’s a couple cavorting inside a giant shell which is being carried on the back of another bloke. Why doesn’t he just put it down and climb in and have a threes-up? There are people with wings, creatures reading books and just more and more nudists. There’s a naked woman lying back, and this other bloke with his face extremely close to her nether regions! What on earth does the blighter think he’s playing at?
There’s loads of grey half men-half fish, some balancing red balls on their heads like seals, and another fellow doing a handstand underwater while holding onto his nuts. You’ve got a ball in a river with people climbing all over it, while a bloke inside the ball is touching a lady in what appears to be a very inappropriate manner! There’s a kind of platypus-type fish reading a book underground and Theresa May triggering Article 50 of Brexit (just kidding about the Theresa May bit).
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Karl Wiggins (Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe)
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she was going straight into Hollywood Station. 9 Ballard kept all her work suits in her locker at the station and dressed for her shifts after arriving each night. She had four different suits that followed the same cut and style but differed in color and pattern. She dry-cleaned them two at a time so that she always had a suit and a backup available. After arriving nearly eight hours early for her shift, Ballard changed into the gray suit that was her favorite. She accompanied it with a white blouse. She kept four white blouses and one navy in her locker as well. It was Friday and that meant Ballard was scheduled to work solo. She and Jenkins had to cover seven shifts a week, so Ballard took Tuesday to Saturday and Jenkins covered Sunday to Thursday, giving them three overlap days. When they took vacation time, their slots usually went unfilled. If a detective in the division was needed during the early-morning hours, then someone had to be called in from home. Working solo suited Ballard because she didn’t have to run decisions by her partner. On this day, if he had known what Ballard’s plan was, Jenkins would have put the kibosh on it. But because it was Friday, they would not be working together again until the following Tuesday, and she was clear to make her own moves. After suiting up, Ballard checked herself in the mirror over the locker room sinks. She combed her sun-streaked hair with her fingers. That was all she usually had to do. Constant immersion in salt water and exposure to the sun over years had left her with broken, flyaway hair that she kept no longer than chin length out of necessity. It went well with her tan and gave off a slightly butch look that reduced advances from other officers. Olivas had been an exception. Ballard squeezed some Visine drops into her eyes, which were red from the salt water. After that she was good to go. She went into the break room to brew a double-shot espresso on the Keurig. She would be operating now and through the night on less than three hours of sleep. She needed to start stacking caffeine. She kept her eye on the wall clock because she wanted to time her arrival in the detective bureau at shortly before four p.m., when she knew the lead detective in the CAPs unit would also be watching the clock, getting ready to split for the weekend. She had at least fifteen minutes to kill, so she went upstairs to the offices of the buy-bust team next to the vice unit. Major Narcotics was located downtown but each division operated
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
“
the chain-of-custody document to the back of the search warrant application and was ready to go. “I’m out of here,” she announced. “You ever want to get together after work, I’m here, Amy. At least until the late show starts.” “Thanks,” Dodd said, seeming to pick up on Ballard’s worry. “I might take you up on that.” Ballard took the elevator down and then crossed the front plaza toward her car. She checked the windshield and saw no ticket. She decided to double down on her luck and leave the car there. The courthouse was only a block away on Temple; if she was fast and Judge Thornton had not convened court, she could be back to the car in less than a half hour. She quickened her pace. Judge Billy Thornton was a well-regarded mainstay in the local criminal justice system. He had served both as a public defender and as a deputy district attorney in his early years, before being elected to the bench and holding the position in Department 107 of the Los Angeles Superior Court for more than a quarter century. He had a folksy manner in the courtroom that concealed a sharp legal mind—one reason the presiding judge assigned wiretap search warrants to him. His full name was Clarence William Thornton but he preferred Billy, and his bailiff called it out every time he entered the courtroom: “The Honorable Billy Thornton presiding.” Thanks to the inordinately long wait for an elevator in the fifty-year-old courthouse, Ballard did not get to Department 107 until ten minutes before ten a.m., and she saw that court was about to convene. A man in blue county jail scrubs was at the defense table with his suited attorney sitting next to him. A prosecutor Ballard recognized but could not remember by name was at the other table. They appeared ready to go and the only party missing was the judge on the bench. Ballard pulled back her jacket so the badge on her belt could be seen by the courtroom deputy and went through the gate. She moved around the attorney tables and went to the clerk’s station to the right of the judge’s bench. A man with a fraying shirt collar looked up at her. The nameplate on his desk said ADAM TRAINOR. “Hi,” Ballard whispered, feigning breathlessness so Trainor would think she had run up the nine flights of steps and take pity. “Is there any chance I can get in to see the judge about a wiretap warrant before he starts court?” “Oh, boy, we’re just waiting on the last juror to get here before starting,” Trainor said. “You might have to come back at the lunch break.” “Can you please just ask him? The warrant’s only seven pages and most of it’s boilerplate stuff he’s read a million times. It won’t take him long.” “Let me see. What’s your name and department?” “Renée Ballard, LAPD. I’m working a cold case homicide. And there is a time element on this.” Trainor picked up his phone, punched a button, and swiveled on his chair so his back was to Ballard and she would have difficulty hearing the phone call. It didn’t matter because it was over in twenty seconds and Ballard expected the answer was no as Trainor swiveled toward her. But she was wrong. “You can go back,” Trainor said. “He’s in his chambers. He’s got about ten minutes. The missing juror just called from the garage.” “Not with those elevators,” Ballard said. Trainor opened a half door in the cubicle that allowed Ballard access to the rear door of the courtroom. She walked through a file room and then into a hallway. She had been in judicial chambers on other cases before and knew that this hallway led to a line of offices assigned to the criminal-court judges. She didn’t know whether to go right or left until she heard a voice say, “Back here.” It was to the left. She found an open door and saw Judge Billy Thornton standing next to a desk, pulling on his black robe for court. “Come in,” he said. Ballard entered. His chambers were just like the others she had been
”
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Michael Connelly (The Night Fire (Renée Ballard, #3; Harry Bosch, #22; Harry Bosch Universe, #33))
“
When you walked the dog, did you see anything unusual on the street?” Ballard asked the old woman. “Anybody out of place?” “No, nothing unusual,” Lantana said. “Is there any construction on the street? Workers hanging around?
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
“
His favorite thing about snakes was how they swallowed their prey with one giant gulp. People were afraid of snakes, too, but that just showed how cowardly people were. Not Chet, though. At last year’s field trip, he had held a boa constrictor without a second thought, even though Miss Bosch and the keeper of the reptile house, Mr. Frederick, said it could crush bones just by squeezing.
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Erin Entrada Kelly (Hello, Universe)
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Look, Lieutenant, it was the best way to take the guy down. Even now, if I had it to do again, I would do the exact same thing—draw him out of the room. Only I’d put on a vest and a raid jacket just so Smitty wouldn’t get so fucking confused.” “Take it easy, Ballard. Sometimes you’re like a feral fucking cat. Smitty wasn’t confused, okay? He just wanted his boot to know how it should be done.” “Whatever. You said you weren’t writing me up.” “And I’m not. I told Smitty I’d talk to you, and I have. That’s it. Learn from it, Ballard.
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”
Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
“
It was clear that the RVs, no matter how decrepit and despairing, were the choice habitats in the community. A cottage industry had recently arisen in which old inoperable campers were pulled out of junkyards and backyards, towed to street parking locations under freeways or in industrial areas, and sold cheap or even rented to homeless people. They were passed from hand to hand and were often the subject of ownership fights and unlawful evictions. The department was in the process of putting together a task force to deal with this and the many other issues of the city’s growing homeless population—the largest west of New York City.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
“
Is somebody in there now?” “Yeah, a guy. Stormy Monday took it.” “That’s the name he uses?” “Yeah. People ’round here use a lot of different names, you know? They’ve left their other names behind.” “Got it. Let’s go talk to Stormy. I’ve got to look inside.” “He’s not a happy guy when you wake him up. They call him Stormy Monday but he’s kind of a dick every single day.
”
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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Something else?” she asked. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “You know, Renée, I’m really sorry about how everything worked out back then.” Ballard looked at him for a moment before answering. “It took you two years to say that?” she finally said. He shrugged. “I guess so. Yeah.” “You’re totally forgetting something you told me back then.” “What are you talking about?” “I’m talking about when you told me to back off the complaint. About how you said Olivas was going through a bad divorce and losing half his pension and not acting right and all of that bullshit—as if it made what he did to me okay.” “I don’t understand what that has to do with—” “You didn’t even keep my number in your phone, Kenny. You washed your hands of the whole thing. You’re not sorry about anything. You saw an opportunity back then and you took it. You had to throw me under the bus but you didn’t hesitate.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
“
Because Nettles was on parole for a felony conviction, Ballard did not need to jump through most of the constitutional hoops that protected citizens from unlawful search and seizure. By legal definition, being on parole from prison meant Nettles was still in the custody of the state. By accepting parole he had given up his protections. His parole agent was allowed to access his home, vehicle, and workplace without so much as a nod from a judge.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
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DSS—didn’t see shit.
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Michael Connelly (The Late Show (Renée Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30))
“
They sat with it in silence for a while. Bosch ran it all through once more and couldn't knock it down. It was only case theory but it held together. It worked, but it didn't mean that it was the way it had happened. Every case had unanswered questions and loose ends when it came to motives and actions. Bosch always though that if you started with the assumption that murder is an unreasonable action, then how could there ever be a fully reasonable explanation for it? It was that understanding that kept him from watching and being able to enjoy films and television shows about detectives. He found them unrealistic in their delivery of what the general audience wanted: all of the answers.
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Michael Connelly (The Burning Room (Harry Bosch, #17; Harry Bosch Universe, #27))