unearths some literary gems.
***
"Credit rating not up to snuff, she told me." Mrs. Wasserman looked stricken, as if her own credit rating were snuff-less.
***
Wiggins tilted the book from side to side in a paperback wave.
***
"What you been doing on your holiday?"....
"Been to eleven films in the last ten days. I thought I'd get it over with all at once."
***
She sat back, fell back, in her chair, holding the cheese puff aloft and seeming to address it, not Jury.
[Gesturing with animated objects, especially comestibles--and related business--is starting to feel like a "theme" in Martha Grimes.]
***
He was absolutely certain by the time he'd reached page fifteen that The Parrot and the Pickle [a nonexistent mystery novel by the previously mentioned nonexistent author Elizabeth Onions] was one of the books the monkeys had cast aside on their way to writing Hamlet.
[And I like how the hypothetical monkeys who would recapitulate Shakespeare, given infinite opportunity, have become actual monkeys who did.]
***
Professor Lamb had a short torso, and his red suspenders made it appear even shorter, as if they were yanking his waist up to mid-chest.
***
[A Baltimore cabbie-cum-tour guide objects to the fare's desire to visit the Poe house rather than the aquarium.]
"So what's interesting? It ain't like he kept giant sting rays."
[Maybe they should take I-95 to Providence and compromise on Lovecraft?]
***
"Except," Jury added, "that there were no such people." [I guess my "no such person" Google Books search missed all the plural nonesuches!]
***
Not setting it in Morocco was as good as not setting it anywhere else.
***
From somewhere came a sudden crash, and Macalvie turned from the phone to yell at someone. Noises off went with Macalvie.
***
