#rim

Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#crime #death #justice #punishment #death

Do you remember the sight we saw, my soul, that soft summer morning round a turning in the path, the disgusting carcass on a bed scattered with stones, its legs in the air like a woman in need burning its wedding poisons like a fountain with its rhythmic sobs, I could hear it clearly flowing with a long murmuring sound, but I touch my body in vain to find the wound. I am the vampire of my own heart, one of the great outcasts condemned to eternal laughter who can no longer smile. Am I dead? I must be dead. ↗

— Charles Baudelaire

#death #horror #murder #poetry #primal-scene

There is a legitimate argument over whether the death penalty effectively deters violent crime, although my personal observation is that not one of the criminals who have been executed over the years has ever killed again. ↗

— Dinesh D'Souza

#crime #law #murder #death

If I wasn't sure before, I'm sure now that she poisoned him to death. I'm also fairly sure she had help killing him, and by God, I'm going to prove it, if it's the last thing I ever do. ↗

— Jeannie Walker

#true-crime #death

You just hang in there, boy, hang in with that apprenticeship of yours, do you hear me? You are lucky they would even take someone like you. You’re a child of the slums. A ragtag. On top of that, you’re a whining piece of shit. Nobody will ever do anything for you. Do you understand what I’m saying? They’ll let you starve to death, no problem. Nobody is going to cry on your grave.” Poul-Erik’s Mother The Informer by Steen Langstrup ↗

— Steen Langstrup

#mothers #noir-style #scandinavian-mysteries #death

There must be some other possibility than death or lifelong penance ... some meeting, some intersection of lines; and some cowardly, hopeful geometer in my brain tells me it is the angle at which two lines prop each other up, the leaning-together from the vertical which produces the false arch. For lack of a keystone, the false arch may be as much as one can expect in this life. Only the very lucky discover the keystone. ↗

— Wallace Stegner

#happiness #harmony #keystones #love #marriage

Is this your first case?' This from the ugliest person Winter had ever seen. His face resembled five pounds of meat loaf molded by an arthritic potter. ↗

— Åke Edwardson

#scandinavian-literature #death

Eve: "Where's Mister Scary?" Roarke: "Summerset has the night off." Eve: "You mean the house is Summerset-free? Damn shame we have to waste it with work. ↗

— J.D. Robb

#suspense #death

We cut down trees that do not bear fruit! We have to bring back the death penalty! It’s the only way to deal with evil.” “Would you execute anyone else, now that you’re in a groove?” Conversation on Radio Fake 112.8 MHz In The Shadow of Sadd ↗

— Steen Langstrup

#scandinavian-mysteries #death

Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional -- to transform sensation, horror and grief into a puzzle, and then to solve the puzzle, to make it go away. 'The detective story,' observed Raymond Chandler in 1949, 'is a tragedy with a happy ending.' A storybook detective starts by confronting us with a murder and ends by absolving us of it. He clears us of guilt. He relieves us of uncertainty. He removes us from the presence of death. ↗

— Kate Summerscale

#crime #detective-stories #detectives #investigations #mysteries