I've had this book in Mt TBR for quite a while now, quietly hoarding it, having picked it up at an MWF a couple of years ago when Stephen Booth was one of the guests. Reading it now for a discussion on the online list Murder & Mayhem.
"Soon there will be a killing. It might happen in the next few hours We could synchronize watches and count down the minutes. What a chance to record the ticking away of a life, to follow it through to that last, perfect moment, when existence becomes nothing, when the spirit parts with the physical."
I can't read the whole opening without remembering Stephen standing on the stage at MWF reading it - in that lovely quiet lilting British accent - it was the most quietly sinister thing I can remember hearing for a long long time.