Devil's Corner

Vicki Allegretti, an assistant US attorney, and her partner go to meet a confidential informant, but during a shootout her partner and the informant get killed. As Vicki is not happy about the police investigations, she decides to do her own inquiries...

I enjoyed Devil's Corner although the main character felt a bit unrealistic, even for a fictional book.

Some quotes from the book

Vicki Allegretti always wondered what it would feel like to look into the barrel of a loaded gun, and now she knew.

"Were you scared?" - "My underwear is clean."

"You can't take anyone for granted. You have to tell people how you feel about them when they're alive, because tomorrow's not guaranteed to anyone."

"Meeting with a defendant is within the scope of your official duties, but trying to kill one is not."

Vicki experienced paycheck envy. Working for Justice paid one-third of that amount, which proved there was no justice.

"You don't look like a lawyer. You're so little."

"How the hell is she?" - "Fine." Only because they stopped me from strangling her.

The grimy kitchen was overrun with cockroaches too bold to run even from a federal prosecution.

She had no idea what had possessed her parents to buy this dog. Every time she came home, the dog attacked her toe, heels, and ankles. Either the animal had no long-term memory or her name was Ruby, no!

She kept nipping, trying to bite Vicki's toe. Adorable, for an attack dwarf.

"She bites you only so you'll do what she wants." - "The control freak of dogs."

It was almost impossible to agree with her father, even when you were faking it.

Vicki smiled at her own joke, because somebody had to.

"I'd make coffee for you, officers, but I'm busy being interrogated."

"Please, call me Vicki when you lie to me."

He had on her favorite jeans, which were soaked from snow at the lower legs. If they were in a movie, Vicki would ask Dan to take his pants off so she could throw them in the dryer, and they'd end up in each other's arms. Unfortunately, they were in Philadelphia, where things like that never happened and people sat around in wet pants.

"I thought we were cooperating?" - "I'm paying, you're cooperating."

The woman of few words had become the woman of no words. Vicki had been previously unaware that you could be a woman and say so very little. It seemed biologically impossible.

"The only thing more boring than watching a drug dealer dig a car out is watching him find a parking space."

"Then I went home to my completely empty house and took a good, long shower. I think I sweated that woman out." Dan smiled. "And I dried myself off with toilet paper, because she took all the towels."

"Thought you said that was dumb." - "It's dumb when you do it, not when I do it."

Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.

Vicki felt oddly as if she'd lived her entire life in one week and realized that perhaps she hadn't been living it well enough before.

"You have to admit I did a good job, boss." - "No, I don't, because you didn't." Bale didn't look up, but kept signing. "You got good results, but your methods were terrible."

His pained eyes locked with Vicki's over the gun, and she knew from his tears what he was going to do. She had faced a loaded gun before, and this bullet wasn't meant for her.

The sedan gleamed like a flying saucer, and the Allegrettis looked as out of place as aliens or, at least, lawyers.

Her mother gave her a discreet shove toward her father, but Vicki had faced loaded Glocks with more enthusiasm.