He could stand snakes, but alligators he disliked. It was the way they dragged their victims underneath the water and buried them, waiting until the corpse became rotten. That was the way they liked their meat—stinking to high heaven. The thought of such a death filled him with dread.

“Cool and brisk in the morning, warming to the low seventies by afternoon,” Ruby said anticipating the weatherman's words.

[…] he looked an officer and a gentleman, though he had been engaged so long in plots, counterplots, intrigues, and conspiracies that a sort of spylike expression had come into his face.

What continues to impress, however, is the woman’s sheer undeflectable force.